Every wave in an Elliott count — whether it's labeled 1, 2, A, or B — is built from smaller waves of its own. Wave (1) of a bigger impulse isn't a single, indivisible move; it's a complete 5-wave (or, inside a correction, 3-wave) structure in miniature. Zoom into any single leg on a chart and, in a clean count, you'll find the same alternation of impulse and correction repeating one degree smaller.
This is the same fractal idea covered in the Beginner Guide — this guide goes one level deeper into exactly how each type of wave subdivides, and what that implies about time.
Written out, that's 5-3-5-3-5 — the signature of a standard impulse at any degree.
Written out, that's 5-3-5 — but only for a zigzag. Other corrective types subdivide differently: a flat runs 3-3-5, and a triangle runs 3-3-3-3-3 across its five legs. Don't assume every ABC you see is a zigzag just because it has three letters.
Elliott Wave is a theory about price structure, not a calendar — a wave completes when its pattern completes, not on a schedule. That said, practitioners still associate each degree with a rough, typical time span, useful for sanity-checking which degree you're likely looking at:
| Degree | 5s — With the Trend | 3s — Against the Trend | Typical Timeframe |
|---|---|---|---|
| Grand Supercycle | IIIIIIIVV | abc | Millennial, secular |
| Supercycle | (I)(II)(III)(IV)(V) | (a)(b)(c) | Secular, annual |
| Cycle | I II III IV V | a b c | Annual, quarterly, monthly |
| Primary | 12345 | ABC | Quarterly, monthly, weekly, daily |
| Intermediate | (1)(2)(3)(4)(5) | (A)(B)(C) | Monthly, weekly, daily |
| Minor | 1 2 3 4 5 | A B C | Monthly, weekly, daily, 240 min |
| Minute | iiiiiiivv | abc | Weekly, daily, 480–60 min |
| Minuette | (i)(ii)(iii)(iv)(v) | (a)(b)(c) | Daily, 480–60 min |
| Subminuette | i ii iii iv v | a b c | 480–60 min and less |
These are typical viewing timeframes, not requirements. A Minor-degree wave can run longer than "usual," and a Cycle-degree wave can run shorter — the structure (5-3-5-3-5, or 5-3-5 / 3-3-5 / 3-3-3-3-3) is what actually defines the wave, never the clock or the notation style itself.
More fundamentally: Elliott Wave and Fibonacci give us price — targets, retracement zones, structure. They don't reliably give us time. Treat any duration in this table as a loose reference for orienting yourself on a chart, never as a forecast of when a wave will finish.
Once you can see the subdivision, a chart stops looking like one long, ambiguous squiggle and starts looking like a set of nested, checkable structures. That matters for two practical reasons:
If you've labeled something Wave 3, its own internal structure should subdivide 5-3-5-3-5. If it looks like a clean 5-3-5 zigzag instead, you may be mislabeling a corrective wave as an impulse.
The trim/re-add logic from the Trimming & Re-Entry Guide applies exactly the same way whether you're reading a Cycle-degree chart spanning years or a Minute-degree chart spanning days — only the time horizon changes, not the mechanics.
See the Elliott Wave Beginner Guide for the base impulse/correction rules, and the Trimming & Re-Entry Guide and Buying & DCA Guide for what TVT actually does at each wave position, regardless of which degree it's happening at.