3:30 p.m. New York time.

Half an hour before the closing bell. The S&P 500 futures rose to 6516.90 during the session and then declined back into the 5490s so far.

Elliott Wave Theory. The session peak may well be the end of a rising subwave within downtrending wave 5, itself the final subwave within wave C, the final wave of the wave 4 corrective pattern that began on August 28.

Or perhaps not. The chart will remain ambiguous until we get a clear rise or fall above or below the present levels. With econ reports focused on inflation scheduled for Wednesday and Thursday, odds are good that we will get that clarity soon.

9:35 a.m. New York time.

What’s happening now. When trading resumed overnight, the S&P 500 E-mini futures immediately fell to 6480.25 and then worked its way higher, forming a sideways pattern in the 6490s coming close to 6410.

What does it mean?  Elliott Wave Theory analysis sees the early overnight rise as a subwave within downtrending wave 5, which in turn is the fina subwave within wave C, the final subwave within wave 4, a downward correction that began on August 14.

When wave 4 reaches its end, it will be followed by an uptrending wave 5, two degrees larger than the smaller wave 5 now underway.

[S&P 500 E-mini futures at 3:30 p.m., 70-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)
• C{-10} (unnamed), 8/28/2025, 6523 (down)
• 5{-11} (unnamed), 9/5/2025, 6541.75 (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, September 8, 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 work at www.timbovee.com