Classify the origin low before counting the next advance

Standard time spans accept only some day-counts

Historical advances are grouped into four standard time-span bands, including a subnormal group of 414-615 days and an extended group of 929-968 days. A 900-day advance does not belong to those clusters and is treated as an impossible count.

A basic advance is a classified upward interval counted from a designated origin low to a later high, grouped by standard duration rather than by the size of the price move. A basic decline is a classified downward interval whose length is expected to fall into one of a few standard duration bands after a prior high.

Why the March 2009 trough is not the origin

After the October 2007 high, the decline into March 2009 lasted 517 days. That length does not appear among the standard decline bands, so the next advance is not counted from that ultimate low.

A temporary or secondary low is expected 13 to 14 months after a bull-market high. The 2007-2008 market bounced on that schedule, matching the long basic-decline window. The principle of continuity requires the next advance to be counted from the end of the previous classified decline, which in this case is the secondary low of November 20, 2008, not the later March 2009 trough.

The long-cycle low is not the next origin

Long cycles are described as about 20 years long. Each is split into two multiple cycles, and those multiple cycles themselves contain two to four basic cycles. The March 2009 low is treated as the end of a long cycle.

That larger role does not change the origin rule. The next basic advance is still counted from the November 20, 2008 secondary low rather than from the later long-cycle trough.

Middle-section counts after 2005

A descending middle section is identified by two rallies, E and G, to approximately the same level, then a final low. January 2005 is presented as such a structure even though its rallies were shorter than typical.

Counting 1,000 days from point E on January 12, 2005 to the October 9, 2007 top, then the same distance forward, projected a low on July 5, 2010 against an actual low on July 2, one trading day earlier.

An ascending middle section is a bull-market interval in which the rate of ascent slows relative to the advances that come before and after it. An August 10, 2005 count of 1,304 days to the March 6, 2009 long-cycle low implied a later high 1,309 days after that low, dated October 5, 2012.

A 1,451-day count from an earlier origin to the March 2009 low, repeated forward, targeted the end of the subsequent bull market on February 24, 2013 and was classified as an extended basic advance. Combining the middle-section projections produced an expected end of the bull market between January 16 and February 24, 2013.