Directional Bias For The Day:

• S&P Futures are lower; drifting sideways to lower since 1:30 PM; the upsloping flag since Friday is in danger of breaking to downside
• The odds are for a down to sideways day from pre-open levels – watch for break above 3008.25 for change of fortune
• Key economic data due:
  • Flash Manufacturing PMI (est. 50.9; prev. 50.6) at 9:45 AM
  • Flash Services PMI  (est. 51.6; prev. 51.6) at 9:45 AM
  • New Homes Index (est. 659K; prev. 626K) at 10:00 AM

Markets Around The World

• • Markets in the East closed mixed – Shanghai, Hong Kong, Tokyo and Sydney closed up; Mumbai, Seoul and Singapore closed down
  • European markets are mixed – Germany, Spain and Italy are up; U.K. France, Switzerland and STOXX 600 are down
  • Currencies:

• Commodities:
  

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

• Bonds
  • 10-yrs yield is at 2.074%, down from July 22 close of 2.043%;
  • 30-years is at 2.608%, down from 2.570%
  • 2-years yield is at 1.835%, down from 1.823%
  • The 10-Year-&-2-Year spread is at 0.220, down from 0.222

Key Levels:

• Critical support levels for S&P 500 are 3000.47, 2988.56 and 2982.50
• Critical resistance levels for S&P 500 are 3006.02, 3009.53 and 3017.80
• Key levels for eMini futures: break above 3008.25, the high of 11:00 PM and break below 2996.00, the low of 5:30 AM

Pre-Open

• On Tuesday, at 4:00 PM, S&P future (June contract) closed at 3007.50 and the index closed at 3005.47 – a spread of about +2.00 points; futures closed at 3008.00 for the day; the fair value is -0.50
• Pre-NYSE session open, futures are lower – at 7:45 AM, S&P 500 futures were down by -8.25; Dow by -88 and NASDAQ by -32.75

Directional Bias Before Open

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

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

Previous Session

Major U.S. indices closed higher on Tuesday, July 23 in higher volume. The indices gapped up at the open and after initial hesitation and little decline, they mostly rose in the afternoon.

From Briefing.com:

The S&P 500 increased 0.7% on Tuesday, bolstered by encouraging trade news and positive earnings reports from widely-held companies. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.7%), Nasdaq Composite (+0.6%), and Russell 2000 (+0.7%) advanced in-line with the benchmark index.

[…]

The news pushed the S&P 500 back above the 3000 level, where it would stay above on a closing basis. Ten of the 11 S&P 500 sectors finished higher, led by the trade-sensitive materials (+2.0%) and industrials (+1.2%) sectors. The utilities sector was the lone holdout, finishing lower by 0.6%.

[…]

U.S. Treasuries finished on a lower note, pushing yields higher across the curve. The 2-yr yield increased two basis points to 1.83%, and the 10-yr yield increased three basis points to 2.07%. The U.S. Dollar Index advanced 0.5% to 97.74, helped by some weakness in the euro. WTI crude rose 0.9% to $56.72/bbl.

[…]

• Existing home sales decreased 1.7% month-over-month in June to a seasonally-adjusted annual rate of 5.27 million (Briefing.com consensus 5.30 million) from an upwardly revised 5.36 million (from 5.34 million) in May. Total sales were 2.2% lower than the same period a year ago.
o The key takeaway from the report is that the drop in mortgage rates has failed to spur a meaningful pickup in existing home sales, which continue to be constrained by the lack of available supply at lower price points.
• The FHFA Housing Price Index for May increased 0.1% after advancing 0.4% in June.