Directional Bias For The Day:

• S&P Futures are higher; moving up since 3:00 AM; broke above past few day’s trading range; first target near 2909.00 is achieved; next target is target near 2915.00
• The odds are for an up day – watch for break below 2902.00 for change of fortune
• Key economic data due:
  • Import Prices ( 0.6% vs. 0.4% est.; prev. 1.0%) at 8:30 AM
  • Prelim UoM Consumer Sentiment ( est. 98.1; prev. 984) at 10:00 AM;

Markets Around The World

• Markets in the East closed mostly up – Shanghai was down
• European markets are mostly higher – Switzerland is down
• Currencies:
  

  Up	Down
  EUR/USD GBP/USD USD/JPY AUD/USD NZD/USD USD/INR	Dollar index USD/CHF USD/CAD

• Commodities:
  

  Up	Down
  Crude Oil NatGas Gold Silver Copper Platinum Palladium	Sugar Coffee Cotton Cocoa

• Bonds
  • 10-yrs yield closed at 2.551%, up from April 10 close of 2.519%;
  • 30-years is at 2.965%, up from 2.904%
  • 2-years yield is at 2.352%, up from 2.315%
  • The 10-Year-&-2-Year spread is at 0.199, up from 0.162

Key Levels:

• Critical support levels for S&P 500 are 2881.99, 2873.33 and 2867.14
• Critical resistance levels for S&P 500 are 2909.64, 2919.78 and 2935.16
• Key levels for eMini futures: break above 2911.75, the high of 8:00 AM and break below 2902.00, the low of 5:30 AM

Pre-Open

• On Thursday, at 4:00 PM, S&P future (June contract) closed at 2892.25 and the index closed at 2888.32 – a spread of about +4.00 points; futures closed at 2891.75 for the day; the fair value is +0.50
• Pre-NYSE session open, futures are higher – at 8:30 AM, S&P 500 futures were up by +18.25; Dow by +234 and NASDAQ by +37.00

Directional Bias Before Open

• Weekly: Uptrend
• Daily: Uptrend
• 120-Min: Side-Up
• 30-Min: Side-Up
• 15-Min: Side-Up
• 6-Min: Side-Up

The trend and patterns on various time frames for S&P 500:

Previous Session

Major U.S. indices closed mixed on Thursday, April 11 in mixed  volume. S&P 500, Dow Jones Transportation Average and Wilshire 5000 Total Market Index closed up. Dow Jones Industrial Average, NASDAQ Composite, Russell 2000 and NYSE closed down. DJIA and S&P 500 traded in higher volume. The day’s price range was small and range bound.

From Briefing.com:

The stock market finished little changed on Thursday in a tight-ranged trading session. The S&P 500 (unch) finished fractionally higher, as relative strength from financial and industrial stocks helped mitigate losses from shares of health care companies in front of earnings season.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 0.1%, the Nasdaq Composite lost 0.2%, and the Russell 2000 lost 0.2%.

[…]

U.S. Treasuries finished on a lower note, pushing yields higher across the curve. The 2-yr yield increased four basis points to 2.35%, and the 10-yr yield increased three basis points to 2.50%. The U.S. Dollar Index increased 0.2% to 97.16. WTI crude fell 1.4% to $63.65/bbl.

[…]

• The Producer Price Index for final demand increased 0.6% in March (Briefing.com consensus +0.3%), bolstered predominately by a pickup in energy prices. The index for final demand, excluding food and energy, was up 0.3% (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%).
o The key takeaway from the report is that producer prices were up noticeably in March, yet there won’t be any alarming read through at this juncture for market participants who are cognizant that the Consumer Price Index for March showed a moderation in the year-over-year increase for core CPI.
• Initial claims for the week ending April 6 decreased by 8,000 to 196,000 (Briefing.com consensus 215,000). Continuing claims for the week ending March 30 fell by 13,000 to 1.713 million.
o The key takeaway from this leading-indicator report is that it clearly shows employers are reluctant to let go of employees, either because they can’t find other qualified workers or because they see demand being strong enough to justify the size of their existing work force.

• S&P 500 Sectors