Directional Bias For The Day:

• S&P Futures are higher;
• The odds are for an up day with elevated volatility – watch for break below 2906.25 for change of fortune
•  Key economic data due:
  • Prelim GDP (2.0% vs. 2.0% est.; prev. 2.1%) at 8:30 AM
  • Goods Trade Balance (-72.3B vs. -74.0B est.; prev. -74.2B) at 8:30 AM
  • Prelim GDP Price Index (2.4% vs. 2.4%; prev. 2.4%) at 8:30 AM
  • Prelim Wholesale Inventories (0.2% vs. 0.2% est.; prev. 0.0%) at 8:30 AM
  • Unemployment Claims (215K vs. 215K est.; prev. 211K) at 8:30 AM
  • Pending Home Sales (0.1% est.; prev. 2.8%) at 10:00 AM

Markets Around The World

• • Markets in the East closed mixed – Hong Kong, Sydney and Singapore closed up; Shanghai, Tokyo, 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 1.486%, up from August 28 close of 1.466%;
  • 30-years is at 1.959%, up from 1.938%
  • 2-years yield is at 1.512%, up from 1.504%
  • The 10-Year-&-2-Year spread is at -0.038 up from -0.046
• VIX
  • Is at 18.18 down from August 28 close of 19.35 after a gap down open; below 5-day SMA 19.40
  • Recent high was 21.64 on August 28; recent low was 15.51 on August 21

Key Levels:

• Critical support levels for S&P 500 are 2901.70, 2890.77 and 2882.70
• Critical resistance levels for S&P 500 are 2919.58, 2927.01 and 2932.35
• Key levels for eMini futures: break above 2919.75, the high of 8:00 AM and break below 2906.50, the low of 4:30 AM

Pre-Open

• On Wednesday, at 4:00 PM, S&P future closed at 2888.25 and the index closed at 2887.94 – a spread of about +0.25 points; futures closed at 2889.75 for the day; the fair value is -1.50
• Pre-NYSE session open, futures are higher – at 9:00 AM, S&P 500 futures were up by +26.50; Dow by +252 and NASDAQ by +87.50

Directional Bias Before Open

• Weekly: Uptrend Under Pressure
• Daily: Uptrend Under Pressure
• 120-Min:Side-Up
• 30-Min: Side-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 Wednesday, August 28 in mostly lower volume that was also lower than 10-day average. Dow Jones Transportation Average traded in higher volume. Most indices made piercing candle. DTRAN made bullish engulfing pattern

From Briefing.com:

U.S. stocks finished higher on Wednesday in a broad-based advance. The S&P 500 increased 0.7%, quickly overcoming a negative start that was attributed to declining Treasury yields and finished near session highs.

The blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average increased 1.0%, the tech-sensitive Nasdaq Composite increased 0.4%, and the small-cap Russell 2000 increased 1.2%.

[…]

Yields came off session lows soon after stocks opened for trading, though, allowing risk sentiment to ease its way back into a flustered stock market. The 2-yr and 10-yr yields declined two basis points each to 1.51% and 1.47%, respectively. The U.S. Dollar Index increased 0.3% to 98.26.

Ten of the 11 S&P 500 sectors finished the day in positive territory. Energy (+1.4%), consumer discretionary (+1.1%), and industrials (+1.1%) set the pace, while the utilities sector (-0.3%) was the lone holdout. The energy sector entered today’s session down over 10% in August, but it found some reprieve amid higher oil prices ($55.76/bbl, +$0.86, +1.6%) following bullish inventory data.

[…]

Wednesday’s economic data was limited to the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index, which declined 6.2% following a 0.9% decline in the prior week.