Directional Bias For The Day:

• S&P Futures are higher, though pulling back little bit since 4:30 AM
• The odds are for an up to sideways day; watch for break below 3115.25 for change of fortune
• Key economic data due:
  • Building Permits ( 1.46M vs. 1.39M est.; prev. 139M) at 8:30 AM
  • Housing Starts (1.31M vs. 1.32M est.; prev. 127M) at 8:30 AM

Directional Bias Before Open:

Key Levels:

• Critical support levels for S&P 500 are 3118.06, 3112.06 and 3104.60
• Critical resistance levels for S&P 500 are 3126.78, 3131.53 and 3138.89
• Key levels for eMini futures: break above 3132.00, the high of 4:30 AM and break below 3115.75, the low of 7:30 PM

Pre-Open

• On Monday, at 4:00 PM, S&P future closed at 3121.00 and the index closed at 3122.03 – a spread of about -1.00 points; futures closed at 3121.75 for the day; the fair value is +0.75
• Pre-NYSE session open, futures are higher – at 8:30 AM, S&P 500 futures were up by +6.75; Dow by +42 and NASDAQ by +32.25

Markets Around The World

• Markets in the East closed mixed – Shanghai, Hong Kong, Sydney and Mumbai closed up; Tokyo, Seoul and Singapore were down
• European markets are higher
• Currencies:
  

  Up	Down
  EUR/USD USD/JPY USD/CHF AUD/USD NZD/USD	Dollar index GBP/USD USD/CAD INR/USD

• Commodities:
  

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

• Bonds
  • 10-yrs yield closed at 1.814%, down from November 15 close of 1.834%;
  • 30-years is at 2.291%, down from 2.311%
  • 2-years yield is at 1.606%, down from 1.614%
  • The 10-Year-&-2-Year spread is at 0.208 down from 0.220
• VIX
  • Is at 12.31 down from November 18 close of 12.46; below 5-day SMA
  • Recent high was 13.95 on October 31; recent low was 11.92 on November 15

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

Previous Session

Major U.S. indices closed mostly higher on Monday, November 18 in mostly lower volume. Russell 2000 and NYSE Composite closed down. Dow Jones Transportation Average traded in lower volume. The day’s price range was small. The indices declined in the beginning before turning around mid-day and then mostly traded higher.

From Briefing.com:

The S&P 500 (+0.1%), Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.1%), and Nasdaq Composite (+0.1%) eked out incremental gains to close at record highs on Monday. The Russell 2000 (-0.3%) closed in negative territory.

[…]

The large-cap indices eased their way into positive territory thanks to the turnarounds in the S&P 500 consumer discretionary (+0.3%), information technology (+0.3%), and communication services (+0.3%) sectors. Consistent leaders included the consumer staples (+0.5%) and real estate (+0.5%) sectors, as the negative-sounding trade headline likely fostered some conservative-minded interest.
The trade-sensitive industrials (-0.3%) and materials (-0.2%) sectors were among today’s laggards, but their losses were small compared to the 1.3% drop in the energy sector, which was pressured by the decline in oil prices ($57.04, -0.71, -1.2%).

[…]

U.S. Treasuries extended last week’s advance, pushing yields slightly lower across the curve. The 2-yr yield declined two basis points to 1.59%, and the 10-yr yield declined three basis points to 1.81%. The U.S. Dollar Index declined 0.2% to 97.80.

Separately, the NAHB Housing Market Index for November declined to 70 from 71 in October. Investors will receive Housing Starts and Building Permits for October on Tuesday.