From John Patmore
John Casti’s article on Elliott wave theory missed out the downside of this type of financial forecasting (31 August, p 28). Like economists, any two “Elliotticians” will have great difficulty in agreeing about what has happened in the past. Failures and extensions of waves bedevil even experts like Robert Prechter, who got the strong financial uptrend of the 1990s badly wrong.
A point that was not mentioned is that Elliott wave theory is good at forecasting how far markets descend. The rule of thumb mentioned means the Dow Jones is forecast to fall to somewhere between 2400 and 1500, based on your displayed count. There goes the pension!
Daventry, Northamptonshire
