$ES #ES-mini #Elliott Wave
We have not seen true higher high and a true lower low for weeks. This is why we can count that directionless consolidation in two opposite ways:
ES-mini daily chart
The market has been digesting the strong one day drop we got on Dec 18,2024. As you can see, Bears tried to break under the low of that candle three times and failed. Then bulls
tried to break over the high of that candle twice but failed. A range bound whipsaw type of a market allows many interpretations until we get a true breakout of that range.
The Bull Macro scenario.
Bulls can make a case that the six week long consolidation was (a) of (v) up, followed by a clean a-b-c pullback in a subwave (b) down of wave (v) up. That bullish setup allows buls to produce a clean five wave up rally to a new all time high in the subwave (c) of wave (v) up.
ES-mini 120 min chart
Note the clean textbook a-b-c down flat corrective pattern highlighted with yellow count:
ES-mini 120 min chart
The yellow box highlights the most common and reliable bullish continuation pattern. You got a rally, then a-b-c down making a higher low. Bulls still controll a ball and can start another leg up.
Note that this nice and simple bullish game can be killed if bears manage to violate the low of that range made at 5,935.
Here again we got a potential -i- up, -ii- down setup. That is a double blade sword. Invalidation of a -i- up, -ii- down setup is what normally triggers big trending moves down because mane traders get trapped by that -i- up, -ii- down setup and get positioned for a rally. If rally does not come and bears break the starting point of -i- up, -ii- down setup all those traders will need to liquidate their long positions. This is what drives strong trending moves down.
ES-mini 3 min chart
This is that -i- up, -ii- down setup zoomed-in. Note that in the most bullish scenario, the overnight drop labelled as -a- could be all of -ii- down. To confirm that scenario bulls need to break over 6,035.50. If bulls fail to trigger that -i- up, -ii- down right at the open, and bears push ES down, bulls will still have opportunity to stop the second leg down in a suwbave -c- of wave -ii- down in the green area (5,980 – 5,967).
Now let’s look at the bearish case, the top is in scenario.
To trigger that scenario bears need to push ES under 5,925.
Frankly speaking, bears failed to trigger that scenario too many times by now. And those multiple failures make me doubt that scenario.