Hoiliday. U.S markets will close at 1 p.m. New York tme today, and will be closed all day tomorrow, December 25, for Christmas. Trading will resume at normal hours on Friday, December 26.

9:30 a.m. New York time

Half an hour before the closing bell. The S&P 500 futures have continued to rise during the session, so far reaching 6986.50.

Elliott Wave Theory: No change from this morning. Rising wave 4{-7} continues. Internally, it is in its final subwave, rising wave C{-8}. A reversal signal would require a confirmed swing high followed by a break of the prior higher-low; we do not have that yet.

9:35 a.m. New York time.

What’s happening now. The S&P 500 E-mini futures continued to rise overnight, reaching into the 6960s. Initial Jobless Claims were published an hour before the opening bell and came in higher than expected.

The price began to fall half an hour before the opening bell, reaching into the 6950s.

What does it mean? Elliott Wave Theory analysis interprets the movement as a continuation of the final subwave, wave C{-8}, within an upward correction, wave 4{-7}.

The correction began on November 21 from 6525, and the C wave on December 17 from 6771.50.

The present bump upward began overnight at 6957.50. If the price remains above that level, then I’ll conclude that wave C{-8} is underway. If price drops below that level, attempts to rise above it and fails, then I’ll conclude that C{-8} is complete, along with its parent, wave 4{-7}.

Should rising wave 4{-7} reach its end, then downtrending wave 5{-7} will have begun, carrying the price back to the 6520s and lower.

[S&P 500 E-mini futures at 12:30 p.m., 90-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)
  • 4{-7} (none), 11/21/2025, 6932.25 (up)
  • C{-8} (none), 12/17/2025, 6771.50 (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, December 24, 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