The Elliott Wave Theorist
Encyclopedia
The Elliott Wave Theorist is a monthly newsletter published by Elliott Wave International. The first issue of the Theorist published in April 1976 and has been continuously in print on a subscription basis since May 1979. The publication includes Elliott wave analysis of the financial markets and cultural trends, plus commentary on topics that include technical analysis
, behavioral finance
, physics, pattern recognition
, and socionomics. Robert Prechter
is the publication's editor and main contributor.
. The publication gathered a following, and Prechter continued to offer it via subscriptions after he left Merrill in 1979.
In the early 1980s, the Theorist issued an aggressively bullish stock market forecast; its prominence grew, and the number of subscribers eventually reaching some 20,000. That number declined in the 1990s (as did subscription levels among financial publishers generally), though the Theorist remains frequently cited on financial websites, in blogs, newsgroups, books, scholarly papers, and by major media.
The newsletter has earned several awards, including Hard Money Digest's "Newsletter Award of Excellence," and Timer Digest's "Timer of the Year." The Theorist has also included commentary for which contributors were criticized, including the forecast of a long-term bear market in the U.S. stock market.
1999 Scientific American
article "A Fractal Walk Down Wall Street," the Theorist ran detailed criticism of that article, saying that Mandelbrot took credit for ideas that "originated with Ralph Nelson Elliott, who put them forth more comprehensively and more accurately with respect to real-world markets in his 1938 book The Wave Principle." In recent years the Theorist has been credited with popularizing market indicators such as the “skyscraper indicator,” and been a forum for ideas and research regarding socionomics from Prechter and others, such as the 2006 essay, “Social Mood and Automobile Styling,” which received wide media coverage.
Technical analysis
In finance, technical analysis is security analysis discipline for forecasting the direction of prices through the study of past market data, primarily price and volume. Behavioral economics and quantitative analysis incorporate technical analysis, which being an aspect of active management stands...
, behavioral finance
Behavioral finance
Behavioral economics and its related area of study, behavioral finance, use social, cognitive and emotional factors in understanding the economic decisions of individuals and institutions performing economic functions, including consumers, borrowers and investors, and their effects on market...
, physics, pattern recognition
Pattern recognition
In machine learning, pattern recognition is the assignment of some sort of output value to a given input value , according to some specific algorithm. An example of pattern recognition is classification, which attempts to assign each input value to one of a given set of classes...
, and socionomics. Robert Prechter
Robert Prechter
Robert R. Prechter, Jr. is an American author and stock market analyst, known for his financial forecasts using the Elliott wave principle. Prechter is an author and co-author of 14 books, and editor of 2 books , his book Conquer the Crash is a New York Times bestseller...
is the publication's editor and main contributor.
History
The Theorist began as Robert Prechter's vehicle for Elliott wave market opinions when he worked as a technical analyst at Merrill LynchMerrill Lynch
Merrill Lynch is the wealth management division of Bank of America. With over 15,000 financial advisors and $2.2 trillion in client assets it is the world's largest brokerage. Formerly known as Merrill Lynch & Co., Inc., prior to 2009 the firm was publicly owned and traded on the New York...
. The publication gathered a following, and Prechter continued to offer it via subscriptions after he left Merrill in 1979.
In the early 1980s, the Theorist issued an aggressively bullish stock market forecast; its prominence grew, and the number of subscribers eventually reaching some 20,000. That number declined in the 1990s (as did subscription levels among financial publishers generally), though the Theorist remains frequently cited on financial websites, in blogs, newsgroups, books, scholarly papers, and by major media.
The newsletter has earned several awards, including Hard Money Digest's "Newsletter Award of Excellence," and Timer Digest's "Timer of the Year." The Theorist has also included commentary for which contributors were criticized, including the forecast of a long-term bear market in the U.S. stock market.
Distinction and controversy
The Theorist has featured several topics of distinction and controversy. Prechter's August 1985 Theorist essay "Pop Culture and the Stock Market" preceded a shorter version of the September 1985 cover story essay in Barron's, "Elvis, Frankenstein and Andy Warhol." Following Benoit Mandelbrot'sBenoît Mandelbrot
Benoît B. Mandelbrot was a French American mathematician. Born in Poland, he moved to France with his family when he was a child...
1999 Scientific American
Scientific American
Scientific American is a popular science magazine. It is notable for its long history of presenting science monthly to an educated but not necessarily scientific public, through its careful attention to the clarity of its text as well as the quality of its specially commissioned color graphics...
article "A Fractal Walk Down Wall Street," the Theorist ran detailed criticism of that article, saying that Mandelbrot took credit for ideas that "originated with Ralph Nelson Elliott, who put them forth more comprehensively and more accurately with respect to real-world markets in his 1938 book The Wave Principle." In recent years the Theorist has been credited with popularizing market indicators such as the “skyscraper indicator,” and been a forum for ideas and research regarding socionomics from Prechter and others, such as the 2006 essay, “Social Mood and Automobile Styling,” which received wide media coverage.