3:30 p.m. New York timw

Half an hour before the closing bell. The S&P 500 futures traded sideways during most of the session, from the 6650s to the 6710s.

Elliott Wave Theory. Rising wave B within the downward correction that began on October 8 is presently underway. It will be followed by a falling C wave that will completing the corrective pattern.

Alternative analysis: In my present numbering, I’ve treated wave A as being a Flat, with three subwaves. It’s possible that it is instead forming a Zigzag pattern, with five subwaves. Using the nomenclature on the chart: That would mean that wave A{-5} would instead be wave 3{-6} within wave A{-5}, with waves 4{-6} and 5{-6} to follow before wave A{-5} reaches its end.

9:35 a.m. New York time.

What’s happening now. The S&P 500 E-mini futures ended a runaway decline on Friday, October 10 and began to rise, and continued rising after trading resumed Sunday evening, October 12.

The Elliott Wave Theory wave structures are quite different from how we left them on Friday.

The long decline that began on October 8 broke a rule of the theory. At its start the fall was a declining 5th wave finshing off wave C, a subwave of a 4th-wave upward correction. Once the rule was broken when the C wave moved beyond the start of the preceding A wave, the analysis had to change. The only way to fix the broken rule was to separate the subwave from the rise of which it was a part.

One change is the analysis — a relabelling in January 2022 — fixed the problem, turning the rapid decline into a thing of its own, unrelated to the preceding rise that had ended on October 8.

I wrote an essay this weekend describng the search for a solution, the fix itself, and it’\s implication both for the future and how we see the history of the market.

The essay, which was published on Sunday, October 12, also unveiled a startling event: The uptrending wave that began at the end of the Great Recession in 1932 had ended on October 8, 2025, signalling the start of a very large, very long decllne that will last for a century, more or less, composed at lower degrees of the usual alteration between bull markets and bear markets.

The title is “The End of the Rise from 1932? Elliott Wave Says ‘Yes’“.

As for the decline, wave A{-4} has completed it’s first subwave, falling wave A{-5}, and has moved on to the second subwave, rising wave B{-5}, as the rhythm of Elliott Wave Theory moves the market, and us, into a new phase.

Could this be wrong? Time will let us know. If wave A{-4} reverses and rises above the October 8 peak, 6812.25, then a new reanalysis is wrong and wave 5{-5} and the other,larger 5th waves are still underway, and we still have the problem of the broken rule.

[S&P 500 E-mini futures at 3:30 p.m., 37-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.

• 1{+4} Supermillennium, (unknown start date or start price) {down}
  • A hypothetical wave one degree higher than Supercyle, needed to make the wave analysis complete.
• S&P 500 Index:
  • A{+3} Supercycle, 10/8/2025, 6812.25 (down}
  • A{+2} Cycle, 10/8/2025, 6812.25 (down}
  • A{+1} Primary, 10/8/2025, 6812.25 (down}
  • A{0} Intermediate, 10/8/2025, 6812.25 (down}
  • A{-1} Minor, 10/8/2025, 6812.25 (down}
  • A{-2} Minute, 10/8/2025, 6812.25 (down}
• S&P 500 Futures
  • A{-3} Minuette 10/8/2025, 6812.25 (down}
  • A{-4} Subminutte 10/8/2025, 6812.25 (down}
  • A{-5} Micro, 10/8/2025, 6812.25 (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, October 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 work at www.timbovee.com