3:30 p.m. New York time

Half an hour before the closing bell. The S&P 500 futures fell further during the session, reaching 6867.75, retracing a portion of the loss, and then reversing to the downside.

Elliott Wave Theory. The decline has reached a point where, to my eye, the 4th-wave upward correction that began on October 2 peaked at today’s high, bringing wave 4 and its final subwave, wave E, to an end.

Downtrending wave 5 began at that point. It will have five subwaves, and the first subwave is now underway.

How far is wave 5 likely to fall? A 5th wave tends to be a quirky beast. If this 5th is run-of-the-mill typical, it will tend to reach somewhere in the 6600s or further, into the 6540s, based on the lengths of subwaves within the parent wave, which is a 1st wav. Sometimes they fall rediculously short, and in this wave that could mean an end somewhere below the 6990 level. And sometimes they move far beyond a length that most traders would consider reasonable, in this case perhaps deep into the 6400s.

But there is still a caveat. The present decline could still reverse and rise above high point. And if that happens, it means that falling wave 5 has not yet begun and rising wave 4 is still underway.

9:35 a.m. New York time.

What’s happening now. The S&P 500 E-mini futures peaked overnight at 6953.75 and then fell, reaching into the 6880s.

What does it mean? Once again the Elliott Wave Theory question is this: Has the upward 4th-wave correction ended and the downtrending 5th wave begun? And the cautious answer is “Maybe”, but also “Perhaps maybe not.”

The decline is a bit larger than prior pullbacks. The last one ended at 6882 on October 29, and I consider falling beyond that point the first step toward verification.

[S&P 500 E-mini futures at 3:30 p.m., 50-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:
  • 1{+3} Supercycle, 10/8/2025, 6812.25 (down}
  • 1{+2} Cycle, 10/8/2025, 6812.25 (down}
  • 1{+1} Primary, 10/8/2025, 6812.25 (down}
  • 1{0} Intermediate, 10/8/2025, 6812.25 (down}
  • 1{-1} Minor, 10/8/2025, 6812.25 (down}
  • 1{-2} Minute, 10/8/2025, 6812.25 (down}
• S&P 500 Futures
  • 1{-3} Minuette 10/8/2025, 6812.25 (down}
  • 1{-4} Subminutte 10/8/2025, 6812.25 (down}
  • 2{-5} Micro, 10/17/2025, 6571.25 (up}
  • 5{-6} Submicro, 10/30/2025, 6853.75 (down)
  • 1{-7} Minscule, 10/30/2025, 6853.75 (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, October 30, 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