European Stocks: "Hope And Optimism Prevail"
These are not the typical psychological conditions for a stock market bottom.

Conventional economists have no shortage of villains to blame the financial crisis on – but if you ask us at EWI, the culprits are as old as investing itself: fear and greed. Whether you are in a financial bubble or a panic, a herding mentality of fear or greed takes over. This curious behavioral phenomenon is precisely what the Elliott Wave Principle describes and studies: Wave patterns in market charts are nothing but fear and greed unfolding right before your eyes. Take a look...

Hanging by a Single Horsehair
Significant problems lie ahead for our new President and Congress.

Fear and greed. The human predilection for cyclic, emotional progression and the basis of the Elliott Wave Principle. We are up to our necks in the fear side of the cycle, and for plenty of good reasons. The Sword of Damocles was only hanging by a single horsehair.  Just how much weight can that horsehair support?  

(Video) EURUSD: Fear in the Markets? Watch for a Trend Change
Market environment is often a helpfl hint at a trend change.

European Stocks: Fear and Greed
Elliott Wave International discusses how the current stocks sell-off is driven more by fear than rational thinking.

You watch financial news, you know what's going on. Spooked by "concerns over a potential U.S. recession," investors are dumping shares on both sides of the pond. But if you ask us, what's going on here is as old as investing itself: fear and greed. Fear and greed move investors. Fear and greed move market prices, too.

The Monsters are Due on Wall Street

Fear makes people want to sell their stocks. It takes a level head to shake off thoughts of fear when others seem consumed by it – particularly when you invest in the markets.

Saturday Night in Boomtown
It's a shootout, but not in corral, and it's not OK

Global investors woke today with the bruises and blinding headaches of binge-drinkers after last week's wild-west bar-fight. In the heat of the action, the bartender left the saloon, and withered LBO prospects hid behind the piano and watched sullen credit markets shoot up the liquidity cabinet. The sheriff made himself scarce, and the undertaker, who has seen it all before, waited patiently at home. Another Saturday night in Boomtown.

The Bear Earth
This is success?

At a dinner recently, I told friends I didn't have all the information I needed to decide whether global warming is caused by humans. They inched away from me, glaring as if I had blasphemed. The issue is emotional and political, and feelings cloud perception.

Wild On The Edges
Where the action is

Edges are where the social and biological action is; they’re the first places shaped by change. On the edges of seacoasts, forests, riverbanks, and -- real-estate bubbles – gulls scream, chipmunks gambol, poison ivy grows, dreamers gamble, and predators wait. Edges are where most of the feeding happens. So what does this have to do with commodities?

Is War Good for the Economy?
Just because "everyone" says so...

The "Little Orphan Annie" comic strip character Daddy Warbucks is still a multi-millionaire, and he recently spoke before Congress in a new incarnation -- young, buzz-cut and handsome. Like death, taxes and the weather, war profiteers are perennial, and little is done about them. And it's useless to pass judgment on war itself; it's such a fixture of human history that some see it as a kind of progress. So, let's assess the popular notion that war is good for the economy.