3:30 p.m. New York Time

Half an hour before the Closing Bell. The S&P 500 futures fell slightly during the session, reaching a low so far of 6114.25.

Elliott Wave Theory: The decline is a subwave wave of the 5th-wave rise that began on June 27.

How long will wave 5 turn out to be? Length and duration in Elliott Whave Theory is far from precise. One metric is to calculate the 5th-wave’s Fibonacci retracements of the preceding 1st wave. A 100% retracement to 6313.25, a 61.8% to around 6263.59, and a 38.2% retracement to about 6232.91. The price is already into the 6250s, so the 38.2% wave has already been exceeded.

Bottom line: The end of wave 5 isn’t too far away.

9:35 a.m. New York time.

What’s happening now. The S&P 500 E-mini futures rose overnight, putting an end to last week’s decline.

What does it mean? Elliott Wave Theory analysis suggests that the decline matches the pattern of a typical 4th wave and the rise that follow, the first steps of the following 5th wave.

The 5th-wave, in turn, is a subwave of a larger 5th wave that began on June 22. When the smaller wave 5 is complete, it will also be the end of the larger 5th wave and series of even larger 5th waves stretching up three degrees. Above them stands an even larger 3rd wave, which began on April 24 and also reach its end simultaneously with all of the smaller waves.

After wave 3 is done, a 4th-wave downward correction will begin and will be noticeably larger than the smaller corrections we have seen of late.

[S&P 500 E-mini futures at 3:30 p.m., 65-minute bars, with volume] 

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, 4/24/2025, 5260 (up)
• 5{-7} Minuscule, 4/25/2025, 5550 (up)
• 5{-8} (unnamed), 5/7/2025, 5596 (up)
• 5{-9} (unnamed), 5/23/2025, 5756.50 (up)
• 5{-10} (unnamed), 6/22/2025, 5959 (up)
• 5{-11} (unnamed), 6/27/2025, 6183.25 {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 30, 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.