2:55 p.m. New York time.

Happy 4th of July! Some Americans still call the day on which we declared our independence “The Glorious 4th”. Despite the difficulties that we have faced from time to time over the centuries, and some would say in the present, I’m one of those Americans who still call July 4 by that old fashioned name.

But holiday though it may be, nothing stops the markets from moving forward. And it was a significant day.

What happened on July 4. The S&P 500 E-mini futures traded overnight and into the 4th of July holiday, closing at 1 p.m. New York time. The price fell from its opening, 6322.25, down to 6276.50, and then stayed within a sideways range until until trading ended.

What does it mean? Elliott Wave Theory analysis sees the peak during the July 3 session, 6331.75, as the end of the 3rd subwave within the 5th-wave uptrend correction that began on June 27.

The subsequent decline is wave 4, a downward correction, that when the holiday session ended had reached a low of 6285.50. There is no notable pattern of subwaves within the decline. The simplest interpretation is that the July 4 low marks the end of wave A within the correction, and the slight bounce upward is the start of wave B, the middle wave within the most common 3-wave form of a correction.

Looking forward: when wave 4 is complete, a 5th wave will begin. Fifth waves are tricky beasts. Most often they leap forward, moving above the endpoint of the preceding 3rd wave (6333.25). Sometimes, they fall short and never reach that level. An sometimes, they will take an extended form, that will carry the price far beyond levels that seem reasonable.

Which kind is this 5th wave? Time will tell.

[S&P 500 E-mini futures at 1 p.m., 25-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)
• 3{-12} (unnamed), 6/30/2025, 6224 (up)
• 3{-13} (unnamed), 7/1/2025, 6227.50 (up)
• 4{-14} {unnamed), 7/3/2025, 6335.25 (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, July 4, 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.