3:30 p.m. New York time

Half an hour before the closing bell. The S&P 500 futures reached a session high of 6111 and then retreated to the 6090s.

The Elliott Wave Theory analysis remains caught in a conundrum: Are the rise and decline subwaves within the rising 5th wave that began today? Or are they subwaves within the 4th-wave downward correction that began on December 5?

Given the brevity of these waves within the fractal structure of the chart, we will almost certainly get an answer next week.

9:35 a.m. New York time

What’s happening now? The S&P 500 E-mini futures rose sharply overnight after the Bureau of Labor Statistics published the November unemployment rate, 4.2%, up from 4.1% a month earlier and from 3.7% a year earlier. The price rise carried the price from 6076 to 6100.75. It then fell slightly but remained on the higher side of the range.

What does it mean? Elliott Wave Theory sees the rise as a 5th and final subwave within the uptrending 5th wave that began on December 1.

[S&P 500 E-mini futures at 3:30 p.m., 50-minute bars, with volume]

What are the alternatives? It’s possible that the starting point of the end point of wave 4 on December 6 is one degree smaller. Under this scenario, the decline was the A wave within the preceding 4th wave, which means the rise is wave B within the corrective wave, with wave C yet to come.

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

Principal Analysis:

• .Rising wave 5{0} is underway. It is a wave of Intermediate degree that began in December 2018.
• It is in its final subwave, wave 5{-1}.
• Within wave 5{-1}, rising waves 5{-2}, 5{-3} and 5{-4} are underway, as is wave 5{-5}.
• Wave 5{-5} is in its initial subwave, wave 1{-6}, which in turn is in its middle subwave, wave 3{-7}.
• Wave 3{-7} is in its final; subwave, uptrending wave 5{-8}.
• Wave 5{-8} is in its final subwave, wave 5{-9}, which is in its final subwave, uptrending wave 5{-10}.
• Wave 5{-10} is in its final subwave, wave 5{-11}, which appears to have completed its middle subwave, wave 3{-12}, within wave 5{-13}.
• Wave 5{-13} is now underway and is in its final subwave, wave 5{-14}

Alternative Analysis:

• Wave 5{-13} is now underway and is in its next-to-the-last subwave, wave 4{-14}, which in turn is in wave B{-15}.

Long-term Waves.

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
• 5{-1} Minor, 10/27/2023, 4127.25 (up)
• 3{-2} Minute, 10/27/23, 4127.75 (up)
• 3{-3} Minuette, 10/27/23, 4127.75 (up)
• 5{-4} Subminuette, 4/18/2024, 4963.50 (up)
• 5{-5} Micro, 8/5/2024, 5120 (up)
• 1{-6} Submicro, 8/5/2024, 5120 (up)
• 3{-7} Minuscule, 8/7/2024, 5182 (up)
• 5{-8} (unnamed), 9/6/2024, 5394 (up)
• 5{-9} (unnamed), 10/2/2024, 5724 (up)
• 5{-10} (unnamed), 11/4/2024, 5824.25 (up)
• 5{-11} (unnamed), 11/19/2024, 5933 (up)
• 5{-12} (unnamed), 11/27/2024, 6000.25 (up)
• 5{-13} (unnamed), 12/1/2024, 6036 (up)

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, December ?, 2024

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.