3:30 p.m. New Yoek time

Half an hour before the closing bell. The S&P 500 E-mini futures continued to rise during the session, crossing above 7560.

Elliott Wave Theory. Today’s session peak puts the price fewer than 90 points below the June 15 high, 7648.75, the present peak of the still-labeled wave D{-5}. The rise increases the odds that wave D{-5} remains underway, but it does not verify D{-5}’s status. Verification requires a move above 7648.75.

The alternate count remains that wave D{-5} ended on June 15 and that falling wave E{-5} is underway. That alternate label also remains unverified.

Decision Points. A rise above 7648.75, the June 15 high, would verify that wave D{-5} remains underway. A decline below 7232.25, the June 11 low and the beginning of wave C{-6}, would verify that wave D{-5} ended on June 15 and that wave E{-5} is underway. Until one of those levels is crossed, the chart remains ambiguous, although today’s rise gives the advantage for now to the wave D{-5} interpretation.

9:35 a.m. New York time

What’s happening now? The S&P 500 E-mini futures reached a low early in overnight trading, 7481.75, and then began to rise, reaching a high of 7517.50. From that point, the price reversed and declined rapidly. So far today, the price has remained within a relatively narrow range.

What does it mean? The overnight session does nothing to resolve the Elliott Wave Theory question that has dominated the S&P 500 during the latter half of June: Has rising wave D{-5} reached its end and falling wave E{-5} begun, or is wave D{-5} still underway? There has as yet been no verification that wave D{-5} has ended, and the chart labeling reflects that fact.

The answer matters a great deal. Both waves are subwaves of wave 4{-4}, a downward correction that began on October 29, 2025. The correction has taken the form of an expanding triangle, in which each wave moving in one direction is exceeded by the next wave moving in that same direction. The triangle tends to keep getting wider, producing an exaggerated effect.

The triangle will have five subwaves, and falling wave E{-5} will be the last. The previous falling wave in the triangle, wave C{-5}, ended at 6353.25. That means wave E{-5}, if it has begun, is likely to end below that level, perhaps considerably below. Or, as sometimes happens in the markets, it could come up short, a condition known as truncation.

Truncated or not, a decline of that magnitude would be disruptive.

Decision Points. A rise above 7648.75, the June 15 high, would verify that wave D{-5} remains underway. A decline below 7232.25, the June 11 low and the beginning of wave C{-6}, would verify that wave D{-5} ended on June 15 and that falling wave E{-5} is underway. Until one of those events occurs, the chart remains ambiguous, and both interpretations remain active. [Note: The original version had an error in describing verification that wave E{-5} is underway. The current version has been corrected.]

The Chart. Today’s chart focuses on wave D{-5}, a rising wave within a downward correction that began on October 29, 2025 and that has contained all that has happened in the market since. The blue lines trace the upper and lower boundaries of the wave 4{-4} expanding triangle.

[S&P 500 E-mini futures 3:30 p.m., 1-day 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.

• S&P 500 Index:
• 5{+3} Supercycle, 7/8/1932, 4.40 (up)
• 5{+2} Cycle, 12/9/1974, 60.96 (up)
• 5{+1} Primary, 3/6/2009, 666.79 (up)
• 5{0} Intermediate, 2/11/2016, 1810.10 (up)
• 3{-1} Minor, 3/23/2020, 2191.36 (up)
• 1{-2} Minute, 7/31/2025, 6468.50 (down)
• S&P 500 E-mini futures
• 5{-3} Minuette 8/1/2025, 6239.50 (up}
• 4{-4} Subminutte 10/29/2025, 6953.75 (down}
• D{-5} Micro, 3/30/2026, 6353.25 (up}
• C{-6} Submicro, 6/11/2026, 7232.25 (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 pageAnalytical Methodsfor a rundown on where to go for information on Elliott Wave analysis.

By Tim Bovee, Portland, Oregon, June 30, 2026

Disclaimer

Tim Bovee, Private Trader tracks the analysis and trades of a private trader managing his own accounts. The content reflects my interpretation of market structure, including Elliott Wave Theory and related tools.

Nothing in this blog constitutes a recommendation to buy or sell stocks, options, or any other financial instrument, or to pursue any particular strategy. The purpose of this blog is education and entertainment.

No trader is ever 100 percent successful. Trading in stock and options markets involves risk and uncertainty. Each trader must make decisions for his or her own account and accept full responsibility for the outcomes.

Charts and tools are used to support my personal analysis. Any data displayed is illustrative of that analytical process and is not presented as a source of market data for redistribution.

All content onTim Bovee, Private TraderbyTimothy K. Boveeis licensed under aCreative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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Based on work atwww.timbovee.com