Directional Bias For The Day:

• S&P Futures are down; moving lower since 12:00 PM on May 16;  fresh leg down since 4:00 AM
• The odds are for a down day with elevated volatility – watch for break above 2847.75 for change of fortune
• No key economic data due

Markets Around The World

• Markets in the East closed mixed – Shanghai, Hong Kong and Seoul closed down; Tokyo, Sydney and Mumbai were up; Singapore was closed for trading
• European markets are lower
• Currencies:
  

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

• Commodities:
  

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

• Bonds
  • 10-yrs yield is at 2.387%, down from May 17 close of 2.393%;
  • 30-years is at 2.814%, down from 2.824%
  • 2-years yield is at 2.204%, up from 2.200%
  • The 10-Year-&-2-Year spread is at 0.183, down from 0.193

Key Levels:

• Critical support levels for S&P 500 are 2829.20, 2817.66 and 2815.08
• Critical resistance levels for S&P 500 are 2854.23, 2864.73 and 2878.55
• Key levels for eMini futures: break above 2847.75, the high of 7:30 AM and break below 2815.00, the low of 9:00 AM on May 15

Pre-Open

• On Friday, at 4:00 PM, S&P future (June contract) closed at 2860.75 and the index closed at 2859.53 – a spread of about +1.25 points; futures closed at 2878.50 for the day; the fair value is -0.50
• Pre-NYSE session open, futures are lower – at 9:00 AM, S&P 500 futures were down by -22.50; Dow by -165 and NASDAQ by -114.50

Directional Bias Before Open

• Weekly: Uptrend
• Daily: Uptrend under pressure
• 120-Min: Down-Side
• 30-Min: Down
• 15-Min: Down
• 6-Min: Down

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

Previous Session

Major U.S. indices closed lower on Friday, May 17 in mixed volume. Dow Jones Industrial Average and Dow Jones Transportation Average traded in lower volume.S&P 500, NASDAQ Composite and Russell 2000 traded in higher volume. Major indices gapped up at the open and the rose higher briefly before turning down mid-day and accelerating in the last hour of trading. Most made gravestone doji like pattern with small almost no lower shadow, long upper shadow and small to non-existent real body.

For the week, major indices closed lower in mixed volume. Dow Jones Industrial Average and Dow Jones Transportation Average traded in higher volume. Only three S&P sectors – Consumer Staples, Utilities and Real Estate – closed higher.

From Briefing.com:

The S&P 500 lost 0.6% on Friday, closing near session lows, following late-session news that talks between the U.S. and China have stalled. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 0.4%, the Nasdaq Composite lost 1.0%, and the Russell 2000 lost 1.4%.

[…]

The cyclical S&P 500 industrials (-1.1%), energy (-1.1%), information technology (-0.8%), and consumer discretionary (-0.8%) sectors led Friday’s retreat. The utilities sector (+0.5%) was the lone sector to finish in the green.

[…]

U.S. Treasuries finished mixed in a curve-flattening trade. The 2-yr yield increased one basis point to 2.21%, and the 10-yr yield declined two basis points to 2.39%. The U.S. Dollar Index increased 0.1% to 97.99. WTI crude declined 0.4% to $62.73/bbl.

[…]

• The Conference Board’s Leading Economic Index increased 0.2% in April, as expected, following a downwardly revised 0.3% increase (from 0.4%) in March.
o The key takeaway from the report is that strengths among the leading indicators became more widespread than weaknesses; nonetheless, the 0.6% increase for the six months ending in April 2019 was much slower than the 2.1% growth during the previous six months.
• The preliminary University of Michigan Index of Consumer Sentiment jumped to 102.4 (Briefing.com consensus 96.9) in May from 97.2 in April. The May reading is the highest reading since 2004.
o The key takeaway from the report is that it was driven by positive attitudes about the outlook, although it would be remiss not to mention that the results were tabulated before the recent setback in trade negotiations with China and implementation of new tariff rates on both sides. That understanding raises the prospect of a downward revision with the final report for May.