3:30 p.m. New York time

Half an hour before the closing bell. The S&P 500 has peaked so far this session at 6496.25 and has stayed close to that mark.

Elliott Wave Theory: This morning’s analysis after Fed Chair Powell completed his speech at the Jackson Hole, Wyoming conference has stayed unchanged: The 4th-wave downtrend that began on August 14 continues. It ended its first subwave, wave A, on August 20, and simultaneously began its second subwave, wave B, which is stilll underway.

Wave A appears to have had three subwaves, although reading the waves is a bit messy. That makes it a Flat correction, meaning that the B wave is allowed under the rules to move above the starting point of the A wave, 6508.75.

If A were counted as having five subwaves, then the corrective form would be a Zigzag and if wave B were to move above the start of wave A, it would violate the rules and require a re-analysis.

My principal analysis sees wave 4 as a Flat.

Wave 4 — all three subwaves — under the rules cannot move below the start of the preceding 1st wave of the same degree. The 1st wave began on August 5 from 6313.25 and forms the precise lowest possible point of wave 4.

10:40 a.m. New York time.

Fed Chair Jerome Powell spoke of lower interest rate changes over the near term and changes in Fed policy over the longer term. The S&P 500 futures began to rise six minutes before he began speaking, reaching a session high so far to 6491.

Elliott Wave Theory. The decline clarified that the first subwave of the 4th-wave downward correction, wave A, ended on August 20 at 6362.75, and rising wave B is now underway.

Fibonacci Retracement calculations suggest wave B may end somewhere between 6500 and 6516. Possibly. These are low certainty projections.

9:35 a.m. New York time.

What’s happening now. The S&P 500 E-mini futures reached a low of 6364 overnight and then rose into the back above 6400 as traders positioned their holdings for Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell’s speech at the Fed’s Jackson Hole, Wyoming conference,at 10 a.m. New York time.

The Fed, and especially Powell, have been criticized by President Trump for not lowering interest rates faster, and there has been much speculation that his speech would suggest a turning point in Federal Open Market Committee policy.

Or maybe not. At this point, all is uncertainty.

This analysis is being published 25-minutues befor the speech. I’ll post another analysis after the message of the speech becomes clear. And then a third analysis half an hour before the closing bell at 3:30 p.m. New York time

What does it mean? The pattern shown by Elliott Wave Theory analysis is unchanged from from where it has been since August 20:

• The 4th-wave downward correction that began on August 14 from 6508.75.
• The decline reached a low within wave 4 of 6362.75.on August 20.
• The price has remained above that level, just barely, ever since.
• Without a signifiant turn to the upside, wave 4 is most likely in its initial subwav, wave A.

[S&P 500 E-mini futures at 3:30 p.m., 40-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)
• 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)
• 3{-5} Micro, 4/21/2025, 5127.25 (up)
• 5{-6} Submicro, 8/1/2025, 6249.50 (up)
• 1{-7} Minuscule, 8/1/2025, 6349.50 (up)
• 3{-8} (unnamed), 8/5/2025, 6313.25 (up)
• 4{-9} (unnamed), 8/14/2025, 6508.75 (down)
• B{-10} (unnamed), 8/30/2025, 6362.75 (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 22, 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