3:30 p.m. New York time

Half an hour before the closing bell. The S&P 500 futures continued to creep higher during the session, so far reaching above 3500. Elliott Wave Theory: The uptrending 5th wave that began on August 1 from 6349.50 continues.

9:35 a.m. New York time.

What’s happening now. The S&P 500 E-mini futures rose overnight reaching 6488.50.

What does it mean? The high exceeded the late July high, 6468.50, which had appeared to be the end of a major uptrend and the beginnng of a downtrend.

Elliott Wave Theory shows that such was not the case. EWT has a firm rule that a 2nd wave can’t move beyond the start of the preceding 1st wave. The new high did just that. When the map no longer matches the terrain, the map must be redrawn.

My redrawing the wave labels to bring them back into appiance with Elliott Wave Theory rules workes like this:

• Waves 1{-3}, 5{-4] and 5{-5} have not yet ended but are still underway.
• Wave 5{-6} is in its 5th wave, also underway
• Wave 5{-6]’s initial subwave, wave 1{-7}, is also underway.

And with those changes, the map once again matchs the terrain. Let’s see where it takes us.

[S&P 500 E-mini futures at 3:30 p.m., 4-hour 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)
• 1{-2} Minute, 7/31/2025, 6468.50 (down)
• S&P 500 Futures
• 1{-3} Minuette, 10/13/2022, 4603 (up)
• 1{-4} Subminuette, 4/7/2025, 4832 (up)
• 1{-5} Micro, 4/7/2025, 4832 (up)
• 5{-6} Submicro, 8/1/2025, 6349.50 (up)
• 1{-7} Minuscule, 8/1/2025, 6349.50 (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, August 13, 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.

All content on Tim Bovee, Private Trader by Timothy K. Bovee is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

License

Based on a work at www.timbovee.com.