3:30 p.m. New York time

Half an hour before the closing bell. The S&P 500 futures’ upward correction has crashed against the 61.8% Fibonacci retracement level, which rounds to a price of 4526, and remains stuck there, so far bouncing like a ball against a wall, unable to resume its rise.

If the price breaks through, the next Fibonacci resistance level is 78.6%, at a price that rounds to 4574.

If it fails to break through, then the corrective pattern will be complete and the next step will be one of those described this morning, in the “What does it mean?” section, below.

I’ve update the chart.

9:35 a.m. New York time

What’s happening now? The S&P 500 E-mini futures rose into the 4110s overnight, retreated slightly, and then rose higher as the opening bell approached.

What does it mean? The third and final wave of the upward correction that began on August 18 continued, and that final wave is near its end. The final wave has met all of the criteria that are typical of such waves. It is approaching the 61.8% Fibonacci retracement level, a common reversal point. (The Fibonacci retracement ladder is shown on the chart in red.)

Either the end of that wave will also be the end of the upward correction and a powerful downtrend, wave 3{-3}, will begin, or the correction will take a compound form, with the end of the first corrective pattern being followed by a declining connector wave and then a second corrective pattern.

What are the alternatives?

[S&P 500 E-mini futures at 3:30 p.m., 30-minute bars, with volume]

What does Elliott wave theory say? Here are the waves that underly the analyses.

Principal analysis:

• A downtrend wave 3{-2}, began on July 27 is underway.
• Internally, wave 3{-2} complete its first subwave, wave 1{-3}, on August 18, and wave 2{-3}, an upward correction, began..
• Within wave 2{-3}, rising wave C{-4} is underway.
• Within rising wave C{-4}, rising wave E{-5} is underway.

Big picture:

• Both the wave 2{-2} correction and wave 3{-2} downtrend are subwaves of wave 4{-1}, a downtrend that began on January 4, 2022.
• Wave 4{-1}, in turn, is a subwave of wave 5{0}, an expanding Diagonal Triangle that began on December 26, 2018.
• Wave 4{-1} may eventually reach the lower boundary of wave 5{0}, presently slightly below 1800 and declining further each day.
• Wave 4{-1} will be followed by rising wave 5{-1}, the final wave in the Triangle.

We Are Here.

These are the waves currently in progress under my principal analysis. Each line on the list shows the wave number, with the subscript in curly brackets, the traditional degree name, the starting date, the starting price of the S&P 500 E-mini futures, and the direction of the wave.

• S&P 500 Index:
• 5{+3} Supercycle, 7/8/1932, 4.40 (up)
• 5{+2} Cycle, 12/9/1974, 60.96 (up)
• 5{+1} Primary, 3/6/2009, 666.79 (up)
• 5{0} Intermediate, 12/26/2018, 2346.58 (up)
• S&P 500 Futures and index:
• 4{-1} Minor, 1/4/2022, 4953.25 (down) (futures), 4818.62 (down) (index)
• S&P 500 Futures:
• 3{-2} Minute, 7/27/2023, 3502 (down)

Reading the chart. Price movements — waves – – in Elliott wave analysis are labeled with numbers within trending waves and letters with corrective waves. The subscripts — numbers in curly brackets — designate the wave’s degree, which, in Elliott wave analysis, means the relative position of a wave within the larger and smaller structures that make up the chart. R.N. Elliott, who in the 1930s developed the form of analysis that bears his name, viewed the chart as a complex structure of smaller waves nested within larger waves, which in turn are nested within still larger waves. In mathematics it’s called a fractal structure, where at every scale the pattern is similar to the others.

Learning and other resources. Elliott wave analysis provides context, not prophecy. As the 20th century semanticist Alfred Korzybski put it in his book Science and Sanity (1933), “The map is not the territory … The only usefulness of a map depends on similarity of structure between the empirical world and the map.” And I would add, in the ever-changing markets, we can judge that similarity of structure only after the fact.

See the menu page Analytical Methods for a rundown on where to go for information on Elliott wave analysis.

By Tim Bovee, Portland, Oregon, August 30, 2023

Disclaimer

Tim Bovee, Private Trader tracks the analysis and trades of a private trader for his own accounts. Nothing in this blog constitutes a recommendation to buy or sell stocks, options or any other financial instrument. The only purpose of this blog is to provide education and entertainment.

No trader is ever 100 percent successful in his or her trades. Trading in the stock and option markets is risky and uncertain. Each trader must make trading decisions for his or her own account, and take responsibility for the consequences.

License

All content on Tim Bovee, Private Trader by Timothy K. Bovee is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Based on a work at www.timbovee.com.