9:35 a.m. New York time
What sort of day? Today is an oddity in the stock market calendar. It is a federal holiday — Columbus Day — in the United States, with the bond markets, banks and Federal Reserve closed. And yet, the stock markets are open.
Trading volume tends to be lighter on such days, bid-ask spreads can widen, and volatility can become erratic. These conditions favor caution rather than aggressive trading.
What’s happening now? The S&P 500 E-mini futures opened at 7873 when trading resumed Sunday evening. The price worked its way upward, with the usual zigzags, reaching a high of 7887 before reversing course and falling into the 7850s.
What does it mean? Elliott Wave Theory: Rising wave D{-5} continues within its third and final subwave, wave C{-6}.
The present decline fits within the second-wave correction underway at degree {-9}, itself part of rising wave 1{-8}. The correction has not invalidated the larger upward wave count.
Decision Points. The October 6 high of 7897.50 remains the principal upside reference. A rise above that level would establish a new high for the current advance and confirm that the upward movement continues.
The overnight low of 7857.75 provides an immediate downside reference. A decline below that level would extend the correction but would not, by itself, establish that wave D{-5} has ended.
The larger question remains whether rising wave D{-5} is approaching completion. A sustained reversal, supported by the developing Elliott wave structure, would shift attention toward falling wave E{-5}, the final subwave of the expanding triangle.
Chart. The chart shows the final subwave, wave C{-6} within rising wave D{-5}, which in turn is a subwave of wave 4{-4}, a downward correction. A recent chart showing wave 4{-4} in its entirety can be found here.
[S&P 500 E-mini futures 9:35 a.m., 2-hour 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} Subminuette 10/29/2025, 6953.75 (down)
- D{-5} Micro, 3/30/2026, 7353.25 (up)
- C{-6} Submicro, 7/29/2026, 7324 (up)
- 5{-7} (none), 10/1/2026, 7711 (up)
- 1{-8} (none), 10/1/2026, 7711 (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 Methods for a rundown on where to go for information on Elliott Wave analysis.
By Tim Bovee, Portland, Oregon, October 12, 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 on Tim Bovee, Private Trader byTimothy K. Boveeis licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
License
Based on work atwww.timbovee.com
