3:30 p.m. New York time

Half an hour before the closing bell. The S&P 500 futures began to fall after the late-overnight peak and continued the decline throughout the session.

Elliott Wave Theory. Wave A, the initial subwave within wave 4, an upward correction, ended at that peak, 7000.50. The middle subwave, declining wave B, is now underway as wave 4 continues and so far during the session has fallen to 6852.

I have modified the labels while it is early in the decline, and so that change comes with a caveat: It’s possible that rising wave A is still underway. If the price reverses quickly today or tomorrow, then we will return to the A-wave-continues scenario as the principal analysis.

9:35 a.m. New York time.

What’s happening now. The S&P 500 E-mini futures barely budged overnight, rising from 6869 to slightly above 6900, and then falling.

What does it mean? The Elliott Wave Theory analysis is unchanged from yesterday. The first subwave, wave A, of a 4th-wave upward correction continues and if typical, is likely to rise to around 6950. It’s also possible that the rise was truncated and that wave A ended at the overnight high.

[S&P 500 E-mini futures at 3:30 p.m., 45-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)
  • 4{-8} (no name), 11/3/2025, 6909.50 (up)
  • B{-9} (no name), 11/12/2025, 6900.50 (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, November 12, 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