Tuesday, July 01, 2008

Capitulation Like Symptoms Visible

The Nifty yet again opened around the same levels as yesterday’s closing and started moving up. Yet again, at 11AM, it started coming down, and exactly like yesterday found support in the late afternoon session. But today the support was found 160 points below yesterday’s close of 4040 at 3878. The Nifty finally ended the day 144 points down at 3896. Our level of 3882 mentioned in yesterday’s post held very well today.

In the last few days I have been discussing Elliott Wave Counts on the Nifty and so far the counts appeared to be correct and working as per our expectations. To read what we had written in other posts discussing Elliott waves, one can go to the end of this post and under the section “Other Posts That May Interest You” read the posts listed under ‘Elliott Waves’. Or, simply click here to read all posts which have discussed Elliott Waves. Briefly, I had mentioned that we are, probably, in the 5th wave down of major corrective wave C. While writing yesterday’s post I got confused and had mentioned that wave 5 cannot be longer than 797.60 points which was the length of the 3rd wave down in the corrective wave C. As per the Elliott Wave principles, the 3rd wave is usually the longest but NEVER the shortest. And I got confused into thinking that if the length of the 5th wave is more than 797.60 then the 3rd wave would become the shortest. What I forgot was that even if wave 5 was longer than that, wave 1 would still be the shortest which measured only 385.05 points. And Sanjay rightly pointed out in the comments here that even if wave 5 exceeded 797.60 points, wave 3 would still not be the shortest. Thank you, Sanjay. Usually, if the 3rd wave is the longest, wave 5 is almost equal to wave 1. In some cases, it could even be 1.618 times, 2.618 times or 4.236 times of wave 1 (and in some of these cases wave 5 could then become the longest). This seems to be a case where wave 5 will be the longest. 1.618 times of 385.05 would be 623 points and the 5th wave is already longer than that. The next target for the end of wave 5 would be 2.618 times of wave 1 (385.05 points) which is 1008.05 points which works out to a target of 3671.70. God save us if it extends to 4.236 times of the first wave!

Nifty Daily Chart - Elliott Waves and Bollinger Bands

I have the daily chart of Nifty uploaded today, as seen above. This chart is the same as yesterday, except being updated with today’s candle. As can be seen from the Bollinger Bands, today’s close was outside the limit of the lower band and this means that the downtrend would continue. Our analysis of the Elliott Wave Counts already suggests that we are looking at a target close to 3672. A quick run through the charts of various large caps and mid caps tells me that almost all stocks, with the exception of those in the pharma and IT sector, seem to have broken through their major supports on the downside. A little bit of capitulation like symptoms were visible today with the prices falling drastically with high volumes. However, there were rumours that an American hedge fund was selling and that the retail investors were not capitulating.

Udayan Mukherjee, the senior stocks analyst for CNBC TV18 said today, that the holdings of the retail segment are mostly in the mid cap and small cap segment and only a small quantity of the retail investors would be invested in the large caps. So, if at all a capitulation by the retail investors were to be seen, it would be mostly in the mid cap and small cap segment and very little in the large cap segment. I, somehow, tend to agree with him. I took a look at the chart of the CNX Midcap 200 Index also today and the picture looks grim, to say the least.

CNX Midcap 200 Index - Bearish Head and Shoulders Pattern

Attached above is the chart of the CNX Midcap 200 Index. The Midcap Index fell by 426 points today, or 7.8% to close at 4992. A look at the chart above tells us that the Midcap Index has confirmed a bearish head and shoulders pattern below 5850, which was formed over a period of 12-14 months. The target for this pattern is close to 1700. If this Index does fall to 1700, it would have fallen 82.6% from its all time high. Incidentally, a smaller bearish head and shoulders pattern is visible on the Relative Strength Index (RSI) chart too. A fall of 82% would really be called capitulation. Please do not interpret my words to say that the midcap Index will fall to 1700. What I said was that it has a target of 1700. The market/this index may capitulate much before it reaches that level.

One very important thing to be noticed and kept in mind is the sentiment indicator. All analysts on TV, Radio and the newspapers are now extremely bearish about the markets. More and more analysts have started giving targets below 10000 on the Sensex. The media (both visual and print), besides business newspapers and business news channels, have started reporting about the massive fall in the markets and the amount of money that the investors have lost. Even knowledgeable people like mutual fund managers and FIIs have turned negative and have started selling. There is pessimism all around. All these factors indicate that we are somewhere very close to a bottom. Long term investments could now be made in small quantities (I’m not saying this as a technical analyst but only as a contrarion investor). Maybe this should cheer some of you out there in all this pessimism.

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