3:30 p.m. New York time

Half an hour before the closing bell. The S&P 500 futures fell into the 5140s during the session and then began to rise.

Elliott Wave Theory. The 5-wave decline is the initial subwave, wave 1, within the downtrending wave 5 that began on April 9. The subsequent rise, still underway, is wave 2.

9:35 a.m. New York time

What’s happening now. The S&P 500 E-mini futures fell overnight, momentarily rising slightly following release of the Consumer Price Index data for March. The declne rapidly resumed.

What does it mean? My analysis using Elliott Wave Theory sees the decline as marking the end of the 4th-wave upward correction that began on April 7. A downtrending 5th wave began on April 9 from 5528.75.

No one will be surprised when I say that there are ambiguities. The 4th wave within the rise lacks clarity, such is is the power of the upward push. However, it is consistent with a 4th wave, and that means the final subwave, wave 5, must follow under the rules of Elliott Wave Theory. Nonetheless, if the price reduces and moved abovr 5528.75, then the 4th-wave upward correction is still underway.

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

 Elliott Wave Theory wave labels. Each wave listed on the charts has two components: A wave number, and a subscript in curly brackets that place the wave’s position in the fractal strucutre in relationship to Intermediate degree. The present Intermediate degree, wave 5{0}, began its rise on February 11, 2016 from 1810.10 and is still underway.

The waves referred to above are as follows. Downtrending wave 5{-8} is underway, a subwave of wave C{-7}, also declining, which in turn is a subwave of declining wave C{-6}, with both C waves encompassed by declining wave 4{-5}, which began on December 16, 2024.

Within wave C{-9}, the final subwave within wave 4{-8}, I count a clear corrective wave, wave 4{-10}, which means that the subsequent rise is wave 5{-10}, the final wave within wave C{-9}.

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)
• C{-7} Minuscule, 3/25/2025, 5835 (down)

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 10, 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