Trader’s Notebook: S&P 500

9:35 a.m. New York time

What’s Happening Now? The S&P 500 E-mini futures rose to 7626 in early trading overnight and then began to fall, reaching a low of 7572. They then reclaimed some of the loss, rising back into the 7590s.

What Does It Mean? Elliott Wave Theory sees wave B{-8} as continuing its rise, despite the overnight decline. It is a subwave of a series of waves of increasing degree, all of them A waves within falling wave E{-5}, the final subwave within wave 4{-4}, an expanding triangle that began on October 29, 2025.

Decision Points. The overnight decline is consistent with a downward correction within rising wave B{-8}. A resumption of the rise would support that interpretation.

A move above 7626 would establish a new high for the current advance. A decline below 7572 would extend the correction but would not, by itself, invalidate the existing wave count.

The Chart. The chart focuses on declining wave E{-5}, with wave A{-6} underway. Within that decline, falling wave A{-7} contains the current rising wave B{-8}, which is undergoing a downward correction.

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)
  • E{-5} Micro 10/6/2026, 7897.50 (down)
  • A{-6} Submicro 10/6/2026, 7897.50 (down)

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, November 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 by Timothy K. Bovee is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Based on work atwww.timbovee.com

Leave a Reply