3:30 p.m. New York time

Half an hour before the closing bell...

Overview:
Half an hour before the closing bell, the S&P 500 futures show a reversal of earlier momentum. While this morning’s analysis considered the possibility that a 5th wave was underway, today’s session has shown otherwise: wave 4{-11} is still active, and the 5th wave has not yet begun.

Context:
The market’s push and pull today seems driven by anticipation of the federal Employment Situation Report, which will be released tomorrow at 8:30 a.m. New York time — an hour before the U.S. market opens. The report is likely to generate considerable price movement as investor sentiment — the psychological force central to Elliott Wave Theory — responds to uncertainty and economic implications.

The federal government’s Employment Situation Report will be released at 8:30 a.m. New York time, an hour before the session’s opening bell, likely inspiring much of the movement as the public mood — the core power behind Elliott Wave Theory — tries to cope with the uncertainty.

What changed?

Using the chart’s labeling system: This morning’s wave 3{-11} has been extended to today’s high, where it ended. This morning’s wave 4{-11} has shrunk by moving it to a later beginning.

9:35 a.m. New York time.

What’s happening now. The S&P 500 E-mini futures fell briefly, down to 5971, when three economic reports were released simultaneously at 8:30 p.m. New York time: Initial Jobless Claims, the U.S. Trade Deficit and U.S. Productivity. Fifteen minutes later, the price rose sharply, reaching 6016.50 and, in the process, breezing past the May 29 high, 6008. The price then declined to the 5980s, retracing much of hte rice.

What does it mean? I’ve moved the chart closer in to show the entirety of the ongoing 5th wave that, when Elliiott Wave Theory is applied, began on May 23.

The difficulty of the chart lies in the length of the first two waves within the 5th wave that began on April 23. That period marked by extreme movements after President Trump on April 2 announced a program of international tariffs. So chart from April into May shows movement that is out of line with the norm. It was only on May 30 that the Elliott Wave movements returned to normal.

The present rise, which began May 30, is the 3rd subwave within the 5th wave that began on May 24.

[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 on the chart are as follows.

Principal analysis: Upward correction wave 5{-2} is underway and within it is working through a nested series of initial subwaves, wave 1{-3} down to wave 1{-5}. One degree lower, rising wave 3{-6} is underway and is in its final subwave, wave 5{-7},

Within wave 5{-7}, uptrending wave 5{-8} is in its final stage, uptrending wave 5{-9}.

Within wave 5{-9}, its middle subwave, wave 3{-10}, is underway. Internally, wave 3{-10} is in its 4th subwave, wave 4{-11}, a downward correction that began from 6016.50.

Waves Now Underway

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)
• 5{-2} Minute, 4/7/2025, 4832 (up)
• S&P 500 Futures
• 1{-3} Minuette, 4/7/2025, 4832 (up)
• 1{-4} Subminuette, 4/7/2025, 4832 (up)
• 1{-5} Micro, 4/7/2025, 4832 (up)
• 3{-6} Submicro, 4/21/2025, 4832 (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, June 5, 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