3:30 p.m. New York time

Half an hour before the closing bell. The S&P 500 futures during the session reached a daily high of 6963.50, then pulled back slightly.

Elliiott Wave Theory: Downtrending wave 5{-6} is now underway and is in its second subwave. Wave 1{-7} began on December 26, 2025coincident with the start of wave 5{-6}, and ended on January 2, 2026, when the current wave 2{-7} began.

A 2nd wave almost always has three subwaves. The rise from January 2 is wave A{-8} within wave 2{-7} within wave 5{-6}. The price then dropped slightly into the afternoon session, which could mean that wave A{-8} ended at the peak, 6963.50, and decliing wave B{-8} has begun. That’s a tentative alternative, and I’ve retained wave A as the principal analysis.

9:35 a.m. New York time.

What’s happening now. The S&P 500 E-mini futures fell for 15 minutes after trading resumed overnight, reaching an overnight low of 6899.50, and then began to rise, at the opening bell reaching into the 6940s.

What does it mean? Applying Elliott Wave Theory, I am now treating the December 26 peak, 6994, as the end of wave 4{-6}, and the decline since then as the start of wave 5{-6}. This remains a call based on likelihood, not certainty. Below 6866.75 the 5th-wave case gains force, while a move above 6994 would invalidate it and require a return to the 4{-6} count.

Bottom line: I’m not betting the bank on either wave analysis. The ambiguity remains strong.

[S&P 500 E-mini futures at 3:30 p.m., 60-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}
  • 4{-6} Submicro, 10/10/2025, 6540.25 (up)
  • 5[-6} Minuscule,12//26/2025, 6994 (down)
  • 2{-7} (none), 1/2/2026, 6866.75 (up)
  • A{-7} (none), 1/2/2026, 6866.75 (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, January 5, 2026

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