3:30 p.m. New York time

Half an hour before the closing bell. The S&P 500 futures rose after the Federal Open Market Committee said it was keeping rates unchanged.

Elliott Wave Theory: The high so far is in the 5770s, above the price I set as the end of the 4th-wave upward correction. I’ve adjusted the chart to reflect the present reality: Rising wave 4, which began in mid-March continues and is in its 3rd and final subwave, wave C.

9:35 a.m. New York time

What’s happening now? The S&P 500 E-mini futures meandered sideway overnight, moving between the 5680s and the 5660s, reaching into the 5690s as the opening bell sounded..

What does it mean? The movement’s pattern in Elliott Wave Theory appears most likely to be either the final stages of the 1st subwave — wave A — or the beginning of the 2nd subwave — wave B — within a 4th-wave upward correction, all happening within the wave 1 of the downtrending 5th wave that began on March 17 from 5759.75.

Most commonly 5th wave will move beyond the end of the preceding 3rd wave, which on this chart occurred on March 11 at 5534., or perhaps March 13 at 5509.25, one of thee ambiguities on the chart.

That’s the norm, but some 5th waves come up short, known as runcation, and some are disproportionally long — extension. There’s no way to tell at this point which sort of 5th wave this one is.

[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 [Updated for the afternoon post.]

• Falling wave 4{-9} is underway and internally is in wave C{-10}.

Long-term Waves. [Updated for the afternoon post.]

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 19, 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