3:30 p.m. New York timw

Half an hour before the closing bell. The S&P 500 futures continued to fall during the session, reaching a low of 5650.75. The decline began on March 17 from 5759.75.

Elliott Wave Theory. In this morning’s post I was unwilling to declare the 4th-wave upward correction over. Given the size the decline, I’m convinced the my Principal Analysis has been overtaken by events.

So it’s farewell, rising wave 4, and welcome, declining wave 5. In Elliott Wave terminology, wave 4{-9} has ended and declining wave 5{-9} has begun.

A 5th wave typically will move beyond the end of the preceding 3rd wave, which 5534 reached on March 11. Or it could be 5509.25, reached on March 13 — there’s a possible rule problem with the structure, and I’m working on figuring that out. No all 5th waves moves beyond the preceding 3rd. Some come up short, a condition known as truncation.

When wave 5 is complete, it will also be the end of its parent C wave (C{-8}), which began on February 19 from 6166.40,and its grandparent 3rd wave (3{-7}).

9:35 a.m. New York time

What’s happening now? The S&P 500 E-mini futures fell overnight, from the 5730s to slight above 5700.

What does it mean? Elliott Wave Theory, when applied to the chart, sees two possibiities: Either the present rising wave 5 ended at yesterday’s peak, 5759.75, or the decline now underway is a subwave within wave 5.

The decline is in its 3rd and possibly final subwave. If the price switches up with further well-defined waves, then it was a correction within wave 5. If it traces a 4th and 5th wave, then wave 5 ended at the March 17 peak.

For now, my principal analysis will stay with the wave-5-continues scenario.

The drama now unfolding is wave C, a subwave of a 4th-wave upward correction that began on March 13. That correction, in turn, is part of two declining 3rd waves, a smaller one nested with a larger one.

The whole structure is within a declining C wave that began on February 19, 2025. It’s parent wave is a declining 4th wave that began on December 16, 2024.

The end of wave C will also be theend of the 4th-wave correction.

[S&P 500 E-mini futures at 3:30 p..m., 40-minute bars, with volume]

What is the alternative? There are some wave proportion and overlaps that require a closer look; I’ll be working on them today.

What does Elliott Wave Theory say? Here are the waves that underlie the morning’s analyses as they appeared on the chart.

Principal Analysis

• Rising wave 4{-9} is underway and internally is in wave C{-10}.
• Wave C{-10} is in wave 5{-11}, the final subwave.
• It’s possible but not yet certain that wave 5{-11} ended on March 18.
• If it did, wave {-10} and wave 4{-9} also ended

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, 2/11/2016, 1810.10 (up)
• 3{-1} Minor, 3/23/2020, 2191.36 (up)
• 3{-2} Minute, 10/13/2022, 3491.58 (up)
• S&P 500 Futures
• 5{-3} Minuette, 4/18/2024, 4963.50 (up)
• 3{-4} Subminuette, 8/7/2024, 5182 (up)
• 4{-5} Micro, 12/16/2024, 6163.75 (down)
• C{-6} Submicro, 2/19/2025, 6166.50 (down)
• 5{-7} (no name), 3/3/2025, 6000.50 (down)
• 3{-8} (no name), 3/5/2025, 5869.40 (down)
• 4{-9} (no name), 3/11/2025, 5534 (up)

Reading the chart. Price movements — waves – – in Elliott Wave Theory 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, March 18, 2025

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