9:35 a.m. New York time
What’s Happening Now?
The S&P 500 futures moved sideways overnight, fluctuating between 7792.50 and 7809.50. The price was trading around 7805 as the opening bell approached.
The overnight movement provided no clear indication of the market’s next direction.
What Does It Mean?
Elliott Wave Theory. The working analysis remains unchanged. Rising wave D{-5}, the next-to-last wave within the expanding triangle that began in October 2025, remains underway.
At the smaller degree, the market is correcting within rising wave 1{-8}. The question is whether downward wave 2{-9} has completed its course or has another decline ahead.
The overnight trading did not resolve that question. The decline to 7792.50 offers a possible ending point for the correction, but the subsequent recovery has not established that the next upward wave is underway.
Decision Points
A sustained rise above the overnight high of 7809.50 would strengthen the case that the correction has ended and the next upward wave has begun.
A decline below 7792.50 would suggest that the correction remains underway.
Until the market provides clearer evidence, the appropriate course is to maintain the existing wave count and await a decisive movement.
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 16, 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
