3:30 p.m. New York time
Half an hour before the closing bell. The S&P 500 futures continued to rise during the session, reaching into the 6960s.
Elliott Wave Theory. Uptrending wave 5{-8} continues. It remains below the peak of the previous 3rd wave of the same degree, 7036.25. A 5th wave can usually be expected to move beyond that peak. Sometimes it falls short, an action known as “truncation”. Sometimes it moves a ridiculous distance beyond, called “extension”. There’s no way to tell which of the three paths this 5th wave will follow.
For now, the uptrend remains intact as long as price continues to hold above the February 17 low. If price were to reverse sharply and tumble, it would imply that the present rise was a subwave of the declining wave 4{-8}, and that wave 5{-8} has not yet begun.
9:35 a.m. New York time.
What’s happening now? The S&P 500 E-mini futures reached a low of 6892.75 overnight and then began to rise, reaching the 6940s shortly after the opening opening bell sounded.
With no scheduled economic reports and no market-moving surprises from last night’s State of the Union, today’s risk skews political rather than economic. Absent unexpected legal or policy headlines, price action should be governed by internal market structure rather than news flow.
What does it mean? Big changes, made clear by events. Which is how Elliott Wave Theory analysis works.
First, I’ve changed the labeling system of waves of the {-11} degree. Wave E{-11} has become wave 5{-11}, in line with the classical Frost and Prechter book Elliott Wave Principle, which notes that the subwaves of wave C often unfold as an impulse, and are therefore numbered.
Second, it has become clear that wave 5{-11} (formerly E{-11}) ended on February 17 at 6791. The reversal from that point also ended a series of parent waves: C{-10}, C{-9} and the downward correction 4{-8}.
Now underway is wave 5{-8}, likely in its first wave one or several degrees below {-8}. In non-Elliott-Wave terminology, the market had turned bullish for awhile.
This configuration is consistent with late-stage corrective behavior, characterized by overlapping price action and limited directional conviction.
Now, a reality check. The beginning of wave 5{-8} has not yet been robustly verified. The price could still reverse to the downside, and if it goes below the February 17 low point of 6791, then the analysis no longer matches the reality of the chart, wave 4{-11} is still underway, as is wave 4{-8}, and the chart will be revised to match the lay of land.
Here are the decision points.
- 6791 — This is a critical invalidation level.
A move below this level negates the bullish interpretation and restores the larger corrective count. - Holding above the 6900–6920 zone — Near-term confirmation bias.
Continued acceptance above this area supports the view that a new impulse is developing at lower degrees. - Upside progress with overlapping structure — Proceed with caution.
Until price action becomes more impulsive and less corrective, confidence should remain provisional.

[S&P 500 E-mini futures at 9:35 a.m., 70-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)
- C{-7} Minuscule, 11/21/2025, 6525 (up)
- 5{-8} (none), 2/17/2026, 6791 (up)
- 1{-9} (none), 2/17/2026, 6791 (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, February 25, 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.
Based on work at www.timbovee.com









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