Revisiting Market Targets...

As of April 11th, we not only knew that we were going to see an upside move, but we were already looking at the potential targets. One of the great things about looking back at analysis like this is that it's not "in the moment", which means some of or all of the emotional bias is taken out of the analysis, kind of like a fighter's fight plan, "Psychologically...Everything changes once the first punch is thrown".

however, whenever I can, I like to try to "Anchor Expectations", this allows me to give you unbiased information ahead of time telling you what I think is probable, what to expect in the hopes that you will be able to take that information and use it to make unbiased, unemotional decisions because you know what to expect BEFORE the actual events begin, once the evnts begin, everything changes emotionally and that is what controls much of the market and most of our decision making process. However, sometimes even when we anchor expectations far in advance and are 100% accurate, the emotional component enters the decision making process which is NEVER good, so I try to anchor expectations as far in advance as I can, but sometimes there's just so much information that we need reminders, I got one from a member today that was very helpful leading to this post.

On April 11th in this Market Update it was obvious we were already near the bottom for an upside bounce and I tried to "guestimate" our upside targets because Wall Street doesn't do anything without a reason and when we can see them putting together cycles ands, bottoms or tops, there's a reason, there's some emotional or technical trip-wire they are trying to engage for their benefit.

This is what the market looked like the day of the April 11th post linked in the paragraph above...

On this daily chart of the SPX, you can see that 4/11 was not only the closing low  before the upside reversal we had been expecting (again you can review everything we were seeing and expecting at the time from the actual April 11th post linked here...Market Update.

Another important event that occurred April 11th for the Dow and the SP-500 was the move to stage 4 for both, which engages shorts as support is broken and subsequently engages our concept of the Volatility Shakeout as technical traders are just that predictable, they enter on confirmation of a break of major support and they place stops in pbvious areas just above former support, now resistance which makes them "easy pickings" for the market in which Wall St. can make money in so many different ways just by running the shakeout. As I have shown many times before, this concept is no different than the Volatility Shakeout of a H&S top.

Both the Q's and the IWM ran a shakeout of new shorts upon the break to the February cycle's stage 4.

 The QQQ 60 min chart's February cycle (accumulation was apparent in late January), note Stage 1, 2, 3, and then the break to stage 4 where technical traders have "confirmation" of the top's break, this is where they enter, but because they are so predictable and place their stops on the books where anyone can see them, it's easy to knock them out by imply running a VTSO ("Volatility Shakeout") above the former support/neckline, which is now considered resistance and thus a safe area to place a BTC stop just above, Wall St. knows it, they can see it and even if they couldn't, Technical Traders are just that predictable.

The Shakeout move is ran and the stops are hit, new shorts are shaken out giving smart money or large money the demand they need to sell in to or short in to as the shorts covering is demand. This is just a tactic, it doesn't change the problems that are present with the asset and as you see, after the shakeout stage 4 resumes, the Q's retraced all of the February cycle.

The same concept applied to the IWM, stage 2, 1, 3 and the break to stage 4 which technical traders see as confirmation of the break of a top and enter short on that break with stops placed just above or sometimes right at former support (now resistance) as technical traders have a big misconception in thinking support and resistance are exact levels rather than areas. As you see they were shake out and stage 4 resumes.

AS FOR THE TARGETS POSTED APRIL 11TH FOR AN UPSIDE MOVE EVEN THOUGH WE WERE AT A NEW LOW FOR THE FEBRUARY CYCLE...

In the post Market Update on 4/11 I posted these charts which were my "guestimate" of an upside target for both the QQQ and IWM...

 The target is actually a range in yellow, this is the target range on the upside for the IWM...


And this is the range for the QQQ.

If you go back and re-read the post from April 11th and the reason I picked these areas which we are now close to as it looks like a head fake move is being created...

 The IWM as of today on a daily chart with two target areas posted that stretch back to April 11th and..

The two targets for the QQQ also from April 11th as of today.

Why did I pick these two areas specifically? As I said earlier, Wall St. doesn't run ANY cycle that they constructed at considerable expense and time to them without a reason.  THE FIRST OR MINIMUM TARGET WAS TO BREAK THE DOWNTREND CHANNEL (yellow).

The second target area (White)  in this case as of April 11th we had a series of lower lows and lower highs in the NASDAQ 100, better known as a downtrend. THE SECOND TARGET WAS TO BREAK THE SERIES OF LOWER LOWS/LOWER HIGHS BY MAKING A HIGHER HIGH, THUS CHANGING THE TECHNICAL TREND CLASSIFICATION AND WITH THAT, TRADERS' SENTIMENT.

These were the targets posted nearly a week and a half (trading ) ago while we were at new lows for the move to the downside. Today we are in the area of these targets and it looks like a head fake move is forming in the area as well.

Both the Dow and SPX have broken to a higher high, thus their targets are pretty much fulfilled, anything from here is just cake. For the IWM and QQQ the significant target area left is a higher high, they are just a hair away from hitting that target and changing the trend classification even though many will change it based on the break above the downtrend channel.

In other words, we're in the area, some assets will be ready for shorting or buying at this point before others, that's what I'm looking at.