Elliott Waves Are Fractals — Patterns Within Patterns
As we mentioned before, Elliott waves are fractals.
That means each wave is made up of smaller waves.
Confused? Don’t worry — let’s look at another picture (because pictures make everything better, right? Yee-haw! 🤠)
Waves Inside of Waves
Take a closer look at Waves 1, 3, and 5.
Each of these is actually made up of a smaller 5-wave impulse pattern.
Now look at Waves 2 and 4 — these contain smaller 3-wave corrective patterns.
Boom. You’ve just seen fractals in action. 🎉
This repeating wave structure is the core of Elliott Wave Theory, and it continues…
Forever.
Yes — waves within waves, patterns within patterns. The market is like a never-ending Russian nesting doll of waveforms.
Wave Degrees: From Massive to Minute
To keep things organized, Elliott gave names to different sizes (or "degrees") of waves — from the largest, spanning centuries, to the tiniest, moving by the minute.
Here’s the list from largest to smallest:
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Grand Supercycle – multi-century trends
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Supercycle – 40 to 70 years
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Cycle – one to several years
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Primary – a few months to a couple of years
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Intermediate – weeks to months
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Minor – weeks
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Minute – days
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Minuette – hours
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Sub-Minuette – minutes
Each big wave is made up of smaller ones. For example:
A Grand Supercycle contains Supercycles, which contain Cycles, which contain Primary waves, and so on… all the way down to Sub-Minuette.
Got all that? 😅
Elliott Waves in Real Life
Now, let’s take a look at how Elliott Waves show up on actual charts.
Spoiler alert: they’re not always picture-perfect.
Real-world price action is messy. Waves don’t always look textbook clean.
It can also be tricky to label them accurately — especially at first.
But here’s the good news: the more charts you study, the easier it gets.
And don’t worry — you won’t have to figure it all out alone.
In the next sections, we’ll guide you through how to identify waves, and more importantly, how to trade using Elliott Wave Theory.
🏄♂️ So get ready to ride the wave!