Directional Bias For The Day:

• S&P Futures are higher; moving sideways since 10:00 PM on Wednesday
• The odds are for a sideways to up day – watch for break above 3006.75 and break below 2990.50 for clarity
• Key economic data due:
  • CPI ( est. 0.0%; prev. 0.1%) at 8:30 AM
  • Core CPI ( est. 0.2%; prev. 0.1%) at 8:30 AM
  • Unemployment Claims (est,. 220K; prev. 221K) at 8:30 AM
  • Fed Chair’s Humphrey-Hawkins Testimony

Markets Around The World

• Markets in the East closed higher
• European markets are mixed – Germany, U.K., Spain and Switzerland are down; France, Italy and STOXX-600 are up
• 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 Platinum Coffee Cocoa	Copper Palladium Sugar Cotton

• Bonds
  • 10-yrs yield closed at 2.061%, up from July 9 close of 2.054%;
  • 30-years is at 2.571%, up from 2.531%
  • 2-years yield is at 1.832%, down from 1.917%
  • The 10-Year-&-2-Year spread is at 0.229, up from 0.137

Key Levels:

• Critical support levels for S&P 500 are 2989.68, 2984.62 and 2972.44
• Critical resistance levels for S&P 500 are 3002.98, 3011.92 and 3020.85
• Key levels for eMini futures: break above 3006.75, the high of 11:30 PM and break below 3001.00, the low of 3:00 AM

Pre-Open

• On Wednesday, at 4:00 PM, S&P future (June contract) closed at 2996.75 and the index closed at 2993.07 – a spread of about +3.75 points; futures closed at 2997.50 for the day; the fair value is -0.75
• Pre-NYSE session open, futures are higher – at 8:00 AM, S&P 500 futures were up by +6.25; Dow by +87 and NASDAQ by +17.00

Directional Bias Before Open

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

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

Previous Session

Major U.S. indices closed mostly higher on Wednesday, July 10 in mixed volume. Dow Jones Industrial Average, Dow Jones Transportation Average and NYSE Composite traded in lower volume. DJT closed lower. The indices gapped up at the open and then traded down in the first hour before settling at the mid-range and moving sideways for the rest of the day.

From Briefing.com:

The S&P 500 gained 0.5% on Wednesday, briefly surpassing 3000 for the first time after Fed Chair Powell fueled the market’s expectations for a rate cut at the July 30-31 FOMC meeting. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.3%) and the Nasdaq Composite (+0.8%) also set new intraday highs with the Nasdaq finishing at a record close. The Russell 2000 increased 0.2%.

[…]

The dovish tone helped eight of the 11 S&P 500 sectors finish higher. The S&P 500 energy sector (+1.4%) led the advance, buoyed by higher oil prices ($60.48/bbl, +$2.69, +4.7%) amid bullish inventory data and supply disruption in the Gulf of Mexico. The financials (-0.5%), industrials (-0.3%), and materials (-0.2%) sectors were the only sectors that finished lower.

[…]

Shorter-dated U.S. Treasuries increased noticeably on growing expectations for a sharp rate cut, driving the 2-yr yield down eight basis points to 1.82%. The 10-yr yield increased one basis point to 2.06%. The U.S. Dollar Index declined 0.4% to 97.10.

[…]

• Wholesale inventories increased 0.4% in May, as expected, on top of an unrevised 0.8% increase for April. Wholesale sales increased 0.1% following an unrevised 0.4% decline in April.
o The key takeaway from the report is that inventory growth continues to outpace sales growth on a year-over-year basis, which should help keep price pressures in check.
• The weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index declined 2.4% following a 0.1% decline in the prior week.