3:30 p.m. New York time

Half an hour before the closing bell. The S&P 500 futures reached a session high of 5694.75, the highest price so far in the rise that began on March 31, and then declined into the 5620s.

Elliott Wave Theory: So far since yesterday the price has traced three waves, consistent with a 4th-wave upward correction, although it is uncertain whether those three waves are subwaves of wave 4, and further down the fractal structure — subwaves of larger subwaves. It’s an ambiguity that should be sorted out fairly quickly.

9:35 a.m. New York time

What’s happening now? The S&P 500 E-mini futures bounced narrowly between the 5660s and the 5610s.

What does it mean? The Elliott Wave Theory analysis is unchanged from yesterday. The rise that began on March 31 is a small 4th-wave upward correction within the final subwave, wave C, of a 4th-wave downward correction that began on March 25.

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

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 rising wave C{-10}.
• Wave C{-10} is in its final subwave, wave 5{-11}, which in turn is within wave 4{-12}.
• Wave 4{-12} is in wave C{-13}.
• When wave 5{-11} is complete, it will also be the end of wave C{-10} and most likely the end of the 4th wave upward correction, wave 4{-9}.
• When wave 4{-9} is complete, downtrending wave 5{-9} will begin, carrying the price back to the 5530s and most likely lower.

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, April 1, 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