3:30 p.m. New York time

Half an hour before the closing bell. The S&P 500 futures worked its way up to a session high, 6863.50, and then down into the 6810s. Elliott Wave Theory: No confirmation that wave B{-9} is underway. No confirmation that wave A{-9} is still underway.

I think wave B has started, but there’s no guarantee of it.

The Bard understood such times:

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury
Signifying nothing.

–William Shakespeare, “Macbeth” (play) (1606)

9:35 a.m. New York time.

What’s happening now. The S&P 500 E-mini futures reached a low overnight of 6812.25 and then rose, so far reaching 6851.50.

What does it mean? Elliott Wave Theory analysis sees the decline from yesterday’s high, 6854.50, as being the beginning of declining wave B{-9}, the middle subwave within a 2nd-wave upward correction, wave 2{-8}. That point was also the end of the first subwave, rising wave A{-9}.

Maybe.

The decline has yet to be verified as a B wave rather than a subwave within wave A. So we’re still stuck in ambiguity.

Wave A{-9} continues if there is a 30-minute close above 6854.50, the December 1 peak, or two consecutive closes if we want to be conservative. In that case, wave B has not yet begun. The chart is wrong and will be fixed.

If the price falls below 6800 and fails to rise above it on a retest, then wave B is underway, wave A having ended on December 1.

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

Most of the waves began not long ago, on October 8, 2025. See my essay posted on October 12, 2025, “The End of the Rise from 1932? Elliott Wave Theory Says ‘Yes’”, for a discussion of how that happened.

• 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}
  • 1{-5} Micro, 10/8/2025, 6812.25 (down}
  • 5{-6} Submicro, 10/29/2025, 6953.75 (down)
  • 5{-7} Minuscule, 11/20/2025, 6791.25 (down)
  • 2{-8} (none), 11/21/2025, 6525 (up)
  • B{-9} (none), 12/1/2025, 6954.50 (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, December 2, 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