Directional Bias For The Day:

• S&P Futures are lower; moving sideways to down since 7:00 AM on Thursday
• The odds are for a sideways to down day – watch for break above 2898.75 and break below 2881.75 for clarity
• Key economic data due:
  • Retail Sales ( 0.5% vs. 0.7% est. ; 0.3%) at 8:30 AM
  • Core Retail Sales ( 0.5% vs. 0.5% est. ; 0.5%) at 8:30 AM

Markets Around The World

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

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

• Commodities:
  

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

• Bonds
  • 10-yrs yield is at 2.098%, up from June 13 close of 2.091%;
  • 30-years is at 2.597%, up from 2.601%
  • 2-years yield is at 1.875%, up from 1.839%
  • The 10-Year-&-2-Year spread is at 0.223, down from 0.252

Key Levels:

• Critical support levels for S&P 500 are 2882.01, 2874.68 and 2871.83
• Critical resistance levels for S&P 500 are 2894.25, 2902.12 and 2910.61
• Key levels for eMini futures: break above 2890.75, the high of 4:00 AM and break below 2881.75, the low of 6:00 AM

Pre-Open

• On Thursday, at 4:00 PM, S&P future (June contract) closed at 2893.25 and the index closed at 2891.64 – a spread of about +1.50 points; futures closed at 2894.50 for the day; the fair value is -1.25
• Pre-NYSE session open, futures are lower – at 9:00 AM, S&P 500 futures were down by -2.00; Dow by -29 and NASDAQ by -16.25

Directional Bias Before Open

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

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

Previous Session

Major U.S. indices closed higher on Thursday, June 13 in mixed volume. Dow Jones Industrial Average and NASDAQ Composite traded in lower volume. The indices have been moving sideways to down since June 11.

From Briefing.com:

The S&P 500 advanced 0.4% on Thursday, lifted by shares of energy companies as oil prices rose after two oil tankers were attacked off the coast of Iran. A swarm of buyers in the last few minutes of action boosted the benchmark index from near session lows to close out the session on a high note.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average increased 0.4%, the Nasdaq Composite increased 0.6%, and the Russell 2000 increased 1.1%.

[…]

The higher oil prices underpinned the leadership in the S&P 500 energy sector (+1.3%). The communication services sector (+1.1%) received a boost from shares of Walt Disney (DIS 141.74, +6.02, +4.4%) after its price target was raised to $160 from $125 at Morgan Stanley. The consumer discretionary sector (+0.9%) also outperformed.

The defensive-oriented sectors — health care (-0.1%), consumer staples (+0.1%), real estate (+0.1%), and utilities (+0.2%) — trailed the pack after outperforming the broader market on Wednesday.

[…]

The 2-yr yield declined seven basis points to 1.82%, and the 10-yr yield declined four basis points to 2.09%. The U.S. Dollar Index increased 0.1% to 97.06.

[…]

• Initial claims for the week ending June 8 hit 222,000 (Briefing.com consensus 220,000), up 3,000 from the prior week’s revised level of 219,000 (revised from 218,000). Continuing claims for the week ending June 1 increased by 2,000 to 1.695 mln from the previous week’s revised level of 1.693 mln (revised from 1.682 mln).
o The key takeaway from the report is that unemployment claims continue pointing to a tight labor market.
• Import prices decreased 0.3% m/m in May after increasing a revised 0.1% (from 0.2%) in April. Excluding fuel, import prices were also down 0.3%. Export prices decreased 0.2% in May after increasing a revised 0.1% (from 0.2%) in April while export prices, excluding agriculture, were also down 0.2% after growing a revised 0.2% (from 0.4%) in April.
o The key takeaway from the report is that the decline in import prices should keep inflation measures at subdued levels.