One Chart - Two Details

The overall count on the SPY is of a contracting ending diagonal Primary ⑤th wave. We are nowhere near completed. If the current up wave feels like a third wave, it's because it IS. It very well may Intermediate (3) of this count as the chart below shows. So, the wave number agrees with the 'feel' of the wave.

As I said, we are nowhere near complete. These waves can take a very long time - perhaps into the new election and beyond. But eventually it should come down. Yes, it is possible for wave (3) to be a double zigzag. Prechter has commented on such many years ago. It is also possible for wave (4) to contain an interior triangle like the Minor B wave section - when we get there. Here is the detail section on that Minor W-X-Y wave up to Intermediate (3).

The reason the chart is labeled this way is that there is overlap at X, pure and simple - cash & futures - and X is longer in price than ⓑ in March 2023. So, it should be of higher degree, and it is labeled that way. Price is now throwing over the upper wedge line, and everyone is getting exceptionally bullish (the CNN Fear & Greed Index is pegged in Extreme Greed). So, how does the current up wave count? Detail # 2 shows the count from minute ⓑ to minute ⓒ in the chart below.

This chart shows the most likely count from the minute ⓑ wave. Most people will get it wrong. I, myself, initially labeled the ⓑ wave differently at the outset, putting it back at the (w) wave location. The problem is that if you do this, then the first wave up of the third wave is too long for correct degree labeling as a lower degree sub-wave. If you look closely in this wave, now, all the degrees expand properly with lower degree waves actually being shorter in price and time as they should be. I know, I get it. No one cares much about the degree labeling. Trust me. It is helpful.

Note that (ii) - a smaller degree wave - is shorter in price and time than ⓑ. So is (iv). But then note in the next wave ② is smaller than the larger degree (iv), and so is the smaller degree ④.

Then note how getting the degrees right also helps put the gaps in the right location, especially the most recent gap which may eventually also be responsible for an island reversal pattern. Time will tell.

From my perspective, wave-counting is not an art - as some people suggest. It is a process of making measurements and matching those measurements with degree labels. Few people do it correctly. I often get it wrong, myself. But I am very, very aware that I can initially make mistakes in this manner, and I take every effort to correct them.

Have an excellent rest of the weekend.

TraderJoe