Directional Bias For The Day:

• S&P Futures are higher; drifting sideways to up;
• The odds are for an up day – watch for break below 3019.00 for change of fortune
• Watch for emerging Stochastic Bearish Divergence on daily charts
• Key economic data due:
  • ECB Monetary Policy Statement at 7:45 AM
  • ECB Press Conference at 8:0AM
  • Durable Goods (est. 0.8%; prev. -1.3%) at 8:30 AM
  • Core Durable Goods (est. 0.2% ; prev. 0.4%) at 8:30 AM
  • Unemployment Claims ( est. 220K; prev. 216K) at 8:30 AM

Markets Around The World

• • Markets in the East closed mostly higher – Mumbai and Seoul closed down
  • European markets are higher
  • Currencies:

• Commodities:
  

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

• Bonds
  • 10-yrs yield is at 2.050%, down from July 23 close of 2.074%;
  • 30-years is at 2.578%, down from 2.608%
  • 2-years yield is at 1.822%, down from 1.835%
  • The 10-Year-&-2-Year spread is at 0.228, down from 0.239

Key Levels:

• Critical support levels for S&P 500 are 3008.37, 3003.222 and 2996.82
• Critical resistance levels for S&P 500 are 3027.16, 3034.76 and 3049.93
• Key levels for eMini futures: break above 3027.25, the high of 7:30 AM and break below 3019.00, the low of 6:30 AM

Pre-Open

• On Wednesday, at 4:00 PM, S&P future (June contract) closed at 3021.50 and the index closed at 3019.56 – a spread of about +2.00 points; futures closed at 3021.50 for the day; the fair value is 0.00
• Pre-NYSE session open, futures are higher – at 7:45 AM, S&P 500 futures were up by +4.75; Dow by +100 and NASDAQ down by -4.25

Directional Bias Before Open

• Weekly: Uptrend resumed
• Daily: Uptrend
• 120-Min:Up
• 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 mostly higher on Wednesday, July 24 in mixed volume. Dow Jones Industrial Average closed lower. DJIA and NASDAQ Composite traded in lower volume. S&P 500, NASDAQ Composite and Wilshire 5000 Total Market Index made all time highs.

From Briefing.com:

The S&P 500 (+0.5%) and Nasdaq Composite (+0.9%) set new record highs on Wednesday, boosted by out-sized gains in the semiconductor stocks and by shares of companies that beat earnings estimates. The Russell 2000 rose 1.6%.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average, however, lost 0.3% amid noticeable losses in Boeing (BA 361.43, -11.54, -3.1%) and Caterpillar (CAT 131.91, -6.19, -4.5%) following disappointing earnings reports.

Today’s advance was forged in the afternoon, as the market began to shake off several early concerns and instead rally around the host of companies that did provide good earnings news.

[…]

The S&P 500 communication services (+0.9%) and financials (+0.9%) sectors were the day’s best-performing sectors. Semiconductor stocks had a field day, rallying on Texas Instruments’ solid results. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index advanced 3.1%, boosting its year-to-date gain to a staggering 40%.

Conversely, the consumer staples (-0.6%), real estate (-0.1%), and materials (-0.02%) sectors finished lower.

[…]

U.S. Treasury yields finished lower on Wednesday. The 2-yr yield declined one basis point to 1.82%, and the 10-yr yield declined two basis points to 2.05%. The U.S. Dollar Index was unchanged at 97.72. WTI crude lost 1.4% to $55.93/bbl.

[…]

• New home sales increased 7.0% m/m to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 646,000 (Briefing.com consensus 660,000) from a downwardly revised 604,000 (from 626,000) in May. Sales for April and March were also revised lower.
o The key takeaway from the report is that overall sales activity remains tepid despite the fundamental supports of low mortgage rates, low unemployment, and a tight supply of existing homes for sale.
• The weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index declined 1.9% following a 1.1% decline in the prior week.