Directional Bias For The Day:

• S&P Futures are higher
• Moving mostly sideways to down after gapping up at 6:30 PM on Wednesday
• The odds are for an up day with increased chances of sideways to down move from current level – watch for break above 3185.50 and break below 3162.75
• Key economic data due:
  • Retail Sales ( 0.2% vs. 0.5% est. ; prev. 0.4%) at 8:30 AM
  • Core Retail Sales ( 0.1% vs. 0.4% est. ; prev., 0.3%) at 8:30 AM
  • Import Prices ( 0.2% vs. 0.2% est. ; prev. -0.5% ) at 8:30 AM

Directional Bias Before Open:

Key Levels:

• Critical support levels for S&P 500 are 3164.58, 3154.70 and 3150.30
• Critical resistance levels for S&P 500 are 3183.74, 3198.92 and 3221.55
• Key levels for eMini futures: break above 3185.50, the high of 5:30 AM and break below 3162.50, the low of 7:30 AM

Pre-Open

• On Thursday, at 4:00 PM, S&P future closed at 3168.25 and the index closed at 3168.57 – a spread of about -0.25 points; futures closed at 3168.00 for the day; the fair value is +0.25
• Pre-NYSE session open, futures are higher – at 8:30 AM, S&P 500 futures were up by +12.00; Dow by +87 and NASDAQ by +56.50

Markets Around The World

• Markets in the East closed higher
• European markets are higher
• Currencies:
  

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

• Commodities:
  

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

• Bonds
  • 10-yrs yield closed at 1.897%, up from December 11 close of 1.790%;
  • 30-years is at 2.318%, up from 2.220%
  • 2-years yield is at 1.663%, up from 1.605%
  • The 10-Year-&-2-Year spread is at 0.234 up from 0.185
• VIX
  • Is at 12.72 down from December 12 close of 13.94; below 5-day SMA
  • Recent high was 16.90 on December 10; recent low was 12.25 on December 9

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

Previous Session

Major U.S. indices closed higher on Thursday, December 12 in higher volume. All but Dow Jones Transportation Average made all time highs. All but Transport and Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at al time high. The day’s range was large.

From Briefing.com:

The S&P 500 (+0.9%) and Nasdaq Composite (+0.7%) closed at record highs on Thursday, as investors reacted positively to news that the U.S. and China are on the verge of signing a Phase One trade deal. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.8%) and Russell 2000 (+0.8%) both rose 0.8%.

[…]

The S&P 500 cyclical sectors led the advance, with the energy sector (+2.0%) finding additional support in higher oil prices ($59.18, +0.44, +0.8%) and the financials sector (+2.0%) benefiting from some curve-steepening activity. Trade-sensitive stocks like Wynn Resorts (WYNN 132.27, +11.44, +9.5%) and those in the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (+2.7%) also outperformed.

The 2-yr yield rose six basis points to 1.67%, and the 10-yr yield rose 11 basis points to 1.90%. The U.S. Dollar Index increased 0.1% to 97.29.

[…]

• The Producer Price Index for final demand (PPI) was unchanged month-over-month in November (Briefing.com consensus 0.2%) while core PPI, which excludes food and energy, surprisingly declined 0.2% (Briefing.com consensus 0.2%). That left the year-over-year increases at 1.1% and 1.3%, respectively, versus 1.1% and 1.6% in October.
o The key takeaway from this report is that it speaks to why the Fed is choosing to remain patient in raising the fed funds rate, as it reflects the disinflation (and low inflation expectations) trend Fed Chair Powell does not want to see growing deeper roots.
• Initial claims for the week ending December 7 rose by 49,000 to 252,000 (Briefing.com consensus 212,000). That is the highest level of initial claims since September 30, 2017. Continuing claims for the week ending November 30 decreased by 31,000 to 1.667 million.
o The key takeaway from the report is that the latest figure is outside the range of what has become typical reporting for this series, so it may be discounted as aberrant; however, the slowly rising uptick in the four-week moving average for initial claims implies that we may have seen the bottom for this cycle.