3:30 p.m. New York time

Half an hour before the closing bell. The S&P 500 once again began what looked like a new downtrending wave, only to reverse and climb, coming close to a higher high and turning the apparent downtrend into yet another head fake.

Elliott wave A{-9} continues; on that point we can be confident. Its parent, rising corrective wave 2{-8}, is also underway and is taking the form of a Triangle.

So far, so good. But why all of the head fakery?

One Elliott Wave pattern that naturally produces this kind of behaviour within wave A{-9} is the expanding triangle: a net sideways movement in which each new high exceeds the last and each new low undercuts the prior low. That is precisely the pattern that appears on the chart.

I have marked this candidate triangle with wave numbers in red and drawn one line connecting the highs and another connecting the lows. Under this analysis, which remains provisional, the expanding triangle is wave 4{-10} within wave A{-9}.

9:35 a.m. New York time.

What’s happening now. As the closing bell approached on Wednesday, the S&P 500 E-mini futures pushed to a new high at 6908, extending the rise that began on November 21. Price then dropped hard to 6817.50 before reversing and reclaiming roughly half of that decline.

What does it mean? The fresh high was important for Elliott Wave analysis because it confirmed that rising wave A{-9} is still in force, a conclusion that had been in doubt for several days.

But the strength of the subsequent reversal immediately threw that verdict back into question. Did wave A{-9} actually end at 6908, with wave B{-9} now starting down? Or was the drop just a headfake within an ongoing A{-9} advance?

The structure one degree higher adds another layer. Waves A{-9} and B{-9} are components of wave 2{-8}, an upward correction that is taking the shape of a sideways triangle. Most corrections have three subwaves; triangles have five, labeled A through E.

We cannot yet know with certainty whether wave A{-9} is complete. What we can do is use prior pausing points as signals and frame what prices would confirm each scenario. For that, I turned to the ChatGPT AI for an outside read.

The AI writes:

“Wednesday’s push to 6908 likely completed wave A{-9} of the developing 2{-8} triangle, but the follow-through will tell us which wave is really in force. A decisive break below 6817.50 in regular trading hours, especially if it carries down toward the 6760–6720 area, would confirm that wave B{-9} is unfolding. By contrast, a sustained move back above 6908 would argue that A{-9} is still extending, or that a new C{-9} leg higher is already in progress. Until one of those signals appears, I’m treating the current swings between 6817.50 and 6908 as an unresolved topping consolidation.”

My working rule is not to change chart labels until a new wave is confirmed. Wave B{-9} has not yet met that test. On the chart, therefore, wave A{-9} remains the active label within wave 2{-8}, pending clearer evidence to the contrary.

[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.

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.

The difficult problem of estimating when a wave change should be accept as real rather than a headfake is addressed by the essay titled, “Is This Reversal Real?: How to Tell Without Being Whipsawed”.

• 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)
  • A{-9} (none), 11/21/2025, 6525 (up)
  • 3{-10} (none), 12/5/2025, 6905 (down–expanding triangle)

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 11, 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