Directional Bias For The Day:

• S&P Futures are higher; moving sideways to up since 10:00 PM on Wednesday
• The odds are for an up to sideways day – watch for break below 2991.50 for change of fortune
• Key economic data due:
  • PPI ( 0.1% vs. 0.1% est.; prev. 0.1%) at 8:30 AM
  • Core PPI ( 0.3% vs. 0.2% est.; prev. 0.2%) at 8:30 AM

Markets Around The World

• Markets in the East closed mostly higher – Sydney and Mumbai closed down
• European markets are mostly higher – Germany and Switzerland are down;
• Currencies:
  

  Up	Down
  Dollar index GBP/USD AUD/USD NZD/USD USD/INR	EUR/USD USD/JPY 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 2.139%, up from July 10 close of 2.061%;
  • 30-years is at 2.662%, up from 2.571%
  • 2-years yield is at 1.873%, up from 1.832%
  • The 10-Year-&-2-Year spread is at 0.266, up from 0.229

Key Levels:

• Critical support levels for S&P 500 are 2994.18, 2988.80 and 2984.62
• Critical resistance levels for S&P 500 are 3005.23, 3010.54 and 3018.76
• Key levels for eMini futures: break above 3012.50, the high of 9:30 PM and break below 3007.75, the low of 3:30 AM

Pre-Open

• On Thursday, at 4:00 PM, S&P future (June contract) closed at 3003.50 and the index closed at 2999.91 – a spread of about +3.50 points; futures closed at 3004.00 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 +7.50; Dow by +89 and NASDAQ by +17.50

Directional Bias Before Open

• Weekly: Uptrend resumed
• Daily: Uptrend
• 120-Min:Side-Up
• 30-Min: Side-Up
• 15-Min: Side-Up
• 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 Thursday, July 11 in mixed volume. NASDAQ Composite and Russell 2000 closed down. Dow Jones Industrial Average, Dow Jones Transportation Average and NYSE Composite traded in higher volume. DJIA made all time intraday and closing high. S&P 500 made all time closing high. NASDAQ Composite had made all time highs on Wednesday.

From Briefing.com:

The S&P 500 (+0.2%) and Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.9%) closed at record highs on Thursday amid lingering rate-cut optimism. The Dow also hit the 27,000 level for the first time, but the Nasdaq Composite (-0.1%) and Russell 2000 (-0.5%) were unable to keep pace.

[…]

Thursday’s leaders included most of the S&P 500 cyclical sectors. The industrials (+0.7%), financials (+0.6%), and materials (+0.4%) sectors finished atop the standings. The real estate sector (-1.2%) was the day’s outright laggard amid higher U.S. Treasury yields.

The 2-yr yield increased three basis points to 1.85%, and the 10-yr yield increased six basis points to 2.12%. The U.S. Dollar Index declined 0.1% to 97.06. WTI crude declined 0.4% to $60.26/bbl.

[…]

• Total CPI increased 0.1% m/m in June (Briefing.com consensus 0.0%) while core CPI, which excludes food and energy, rose 0.3% (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%). On a yr/yr basis, total CPI was up 1.6%, versus 1.8% in May, while core CPI was up 2.1%, versus 2.0% in May.
o The key takeaway from the report was that the yr/yr uptick in core CPI should seemingly diminish the prospect of a 50-basis points rate cut at the July meeting.
• Initial claims for the week ending July 6 decreased by 13,000 to 209,000 (Briefing.com consensus 222,000). Continuing claims for the week ending June 29 jumped by 27,000 to 1.723 million.
o The key takeaway from the report is that it continues to reflect a tight labor market where employers are reluctant to let go of employees.
• The Treasury Budget for June showed a deficit of $8.5 billion versus a deficit of $74.8 billion for the same period one year ago. The Treasury Budget is not seasonally adjusted, so the June deficit cannot be compared to the $207.7 billion deficit for May.
o The fiscal year-to-date deficit is $747.1 billion versus a deficit of $607.1 billion for the same period ago. The budget deficit over the last 12 months is $919 billion, versus $985.4 billion for the 12 months ending in May.