Four sugar-futures turns as a ranked wave-ratio audit

A worksheet from four labeled sugar turns

Short-interval chart patterns are treated as recurring trader behavior under similar conditions. That behavior can run against the longer-run supply-and-demand path.

When non-technical or crowd-driven flow temporarily dominates, the described stance is to wait until technical traders again set the price action before treating a level as a decision point.

Each labeled sugar turn is reconstructed after the fact, using only the prices and counts that would have been known before that turn.

Longer waves first, then ratios and squares

Wave analysis is ordered from the longer horizon to the shorter, with time cycles and price retracements, both square and Fibonacci, ranked first.

Elliott-wave degree sets the measuring range. It is the relative size of a completed price swing used to decide which prior wave measures the next turn. An intermediate-degree turn is a swing high or low large enough to mark a change of trend on the active contract, measured against a larger primary swing.

On weekly nearest-March sugar futures, four intermediate-degree turns after the October 1986 low were marked at 5.75, 7.30, 5.77, and 8.85.

Price and time marks at 5.75 and 7.30

The 5.75 low coincided with a 61.8 percent Fibonacci retracement of the prior major advance and a half-time cycle: 107 trading days against a 213-trading-day rise from 3.34 to 9.67.

The rally from 5.75 to 7.30 measured 155 ticks, matching the 155 calendar days of the prior decline from 9.67 to 5.75. The 7.30 level sat a few ticks from a 38.2 percent Fibonacci retracement of that decline. Editorial view: the matching tick and calendar-day counts are a time-price square at that high.

The 5.77 retest and the 8.85 square

The 5.77 retest aligned with a 61.8 percent calendar-time vibration of the 9.67-to-5.75 swing, counted as 61.8 percent of 107 days.

The 8.85 high landed on a 100 percent weekly time square of that same decline. That decline was itself a 50 percent time half, a half-time cycle, of the 3.34-to-9.67 advance.

Calendar days and trading days

Calendar-day and trading-day spans between major turns are both required because weekends and holidays can unbalance a session clock.

Non-trading calendar days are filled with the prior close so the two clocks can be compared.