My question: How many days should I usually wait before a trough or peak is confirmed and unlikely to chnage?  For example, if I use a 5% trough as a buy and wait a week, am I probably safe? (I know not to buy funds when markets are extremely volatile, like now.)

I'm trying to apply the zigzag or trough to mutual fund purchases. Probably would use 5, 7 or 10% zig.  These generally must be held for at least 30 days, so I'm not concerned about using it as a quick trading signal and don't mind some lag to be sure.  If the 'to be sure' period is over 7-10 days, it's problably not worth it.

    The most current peak or trough is pretty worthless. The question I would ask is not how many days
should I wait but what's the probability of being right. ZigZag uses hindsight so any test will give genius
results that no one can duplicate so watch out.
 

I use zig-zag with a reversal 3 & fully agree that for the short term, its only use is in hindsight. 

but I do find that it works very well in combination with Elliott-wave, because it confirms within a few straight lines what elliott sometimes tries to tell you in a convoluted way. 

for instance looking at a chart of BHP (or just about anything else) the zig-zag follows the elliott nicely.  but when it comes to predicting whereto from here, your guess is as good as mine.  Elliott can't tell you & neither can zig-zag. 

 

---

amory

Try this( Dennis Peterson Swing prediction)


pctg:=Input("ZigZag Percentage",3,20,8);
cond1:=Zig(C,pctg,%) cond2:=Zig(C,pctg,%) > Ref(Zig(C,pctg,%),-1);
diff1:=BarsSince(cond1){no of days since a down swing};
diff2:=-BarsSince(cond2);{no of days since an up swing}
sumdiff1:=0;sumdiff2:=0;
sumdiff1:=If(diff1>0,1,Ref(diff1,-1));
sumdiff2:=If(diff2sumdiff1;sumdiff2

Hi Bushjh19,

Perhaps your formula is incomplete.  Please check the formual and repost.

Regards,

(moneypick)

pctg:=Input("ZigZag Percentage",3,20,8);
cond1:=Zig(C,pctg,%) cond2:=Zig(C,pctg,%) > Ref(Zig(C,pctg,%),-1);
diff1:=BarsSince(cond1){no of days since a down swing};
diff2:=-BarsSince(cond2);{no of days since an up swing}
sumdiff1:=0;sumdiff2:=0;
sumdiff1:=If(diff1>0,1,Ref(diff1,-1));
sumdiff2:=If(diff2sumdiff1;sumdiff2

This line contains the error

 

sumdiff2:=If(diff2sumdiff1;sumdiff2

There is also a semi colon missing in Line 2

Jose
www.metastocktools.com/MetaStock/Cycles.txt

Dennis Peterson
http://technical.traders.com/tradersonline/display.asp?art=508

This is the complete code posted by Dennis Peterson in his article titled "Swing Prediction" to which bushjh19 is referring;-

pctg:=Input("ZigZag Percentage",3,20,8);
cond1:=Zig(C,pctg,%) < Ref(Zig(C,pctg,%),-1);
cond2:=Zig(C,pctg,%) > Ref(Zig(C,pctg,%),-1);
diff1:=BarsSince(cond1);{no of days since a down swing}
diff2:=-BarsSince(cond2);{no of days since an up swing}
sumdiff1:=0;sumdiff2:=0;
sumdiff1:=If(diff1>0,1,Ref(diff1,-1));
sumdiff2:=If(diff2<0,1,Ref(diff2,-1));
sumdiff1;sumdiff2