9:35 a.m. New York time
What’s happening now. The S&P 500 E-mini futures began to rise during the Tuesday’s session, picking up the pace after the closing bell, fell sharply early overnight, to 6652.25, and immediately resumed the rapid rise, reaching 6811.50. From that point the direction turned sideways, and the price remained in the 6840s and 6830s, dropping a bit lower as the opening bell approached.
The rise coincided in part with President Trump’s announcement a cease fire in the war, agreed to by both Iran and the United States.
What does it mean? When Elliott Wave Theory is applied, the rise is clearly part of rising wave B{-6}, which began from 6353.25 on March 30. The wave is a subwave of declining wave C{-5}, which in turn is a subwave of a downward correction, wave 4{-4}, which began on October 29, 2025 from 6953.75 and is taking the form of an expanding triangle.
Wave B{-6} appears to be in its final subwave, C{-7}. When it is complete, declining wave C{-6} will begin.
Wave 4{-4}, as a triangle, will have five subwaves, A through E.
Decision Points. The key question is whether rising wave B{-6} has completed its final subwave, C{-7}. The current rally has reached the mid-6800s, placing it within the expected resistance zone for B{-6}, roughly 6620–6680 and extending higher as momentum carried beyond the initial target. A continued hold above 6800, followed by a push to new recovery highs, would argue that C{-7} is still extending and that B{-6} is not yet complete. Conversely, a decisive break below 6760 would be the first signal that upward momentum has failed. A further decline below 6652.25, the overnight low, would strongly suggest that B{-6} has ended and that declining wave C{-6} is underway. Until that lower boundary is broken, the upward structure of B{-6} remains intact, but the risk of reversal is elevated given the maturity of the move.

[S&P 500 E-mini futures at 9:35 a.m., 4-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} Subminutte 10/29/2025, 6953.75 (down}
- C{-5} Micro, 1/27/2026, 7043 (down}
- B{-6} (none), 3/30/2026, 6353.25 (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 page Analytical Methods for a rundown on where to go for information on Elliott Wave analysis.
By Tim Bovee, Portland, Oregon, April 8, 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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