Directional Bias For The Day:

• S&P Futures are little changed
• Moving sideways since 9:30 AM on Monday
• The odds are for a sideways day – watch for break above 3203.50 and break below 3192.00 for clarity
• No key economic data due:

Directional Bias Before Open:

Key Levels:

• Critical support levels for S&P 500 are 3191.08, 3183.63 and 3167.19
• Critical resistance levels for S&P 500 are 3198.22, 3201.11 and 3204.01
• Key levels for eMini futures: break above 3203.50, the high of 9:30 AM on Tuesday and break below 3192.25, the low of 2:30 AM

Pre-Open

• On Tuesday, at 4:00 PM, S&P future (March 2020) closed at 3195.50 and the index closed at 3192.52 – a spread of about +3.00 points; futures closed at 3195.50 for the day; the fair value is +0.00
• Pre-NYSE session open, futures are little changed to up – at 8:30 AM, S&P 500 futures were up by +3.25; Dow by +28 and NASDAQ up by +11.75

Markets Around The World

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

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

• Commodities:
  

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

• Bonds
  • 10-yrs yield closed at 1.887%, down from December 16 close of 1.892%;
  • 30-years is at 2.313%, up from 2.310%
  • 2-years yield is at 1.631%, up from 1.626%
  • The 10-Year-&-2-Year spread is at 0.256 down from 0.266
• VIX
  • Is at 12.04 down from December 17 close of 12.29; below 5-day SMA
  • Recent high was 16.90 on December 10; recent low was 11.42 on November 26

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

Previous Session

Major U.S. indices closed higher on Tuesday, December 17 in mostly lower volume. Dow Jones Transportation Average traded in higher volume. The day’s price-action was subdued and range was small.

From Briefing.com:

The S&P 500 finished flat (+0.03%) on Tuesday in a tight-ranged, and lackluster, session. It was still technically a record close, though, joining the Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.1%) and Nasdaq Composite (+0.1%) further in record territory. The Russell 20000 outperformed with a 0.5% gain.

[…]

Six of the 11 sectors did finish lower, though, with the weakest performer being the real estate sector (-1.2%). No other sector finished down more than 0.2% (information technology).

[…]

U.S. Treasuries finished little changed. Both the 2-yr yield and 10-yr yield remained unchanged at 1.63% and 1.89%, respectively. The U.S. Dollar Index increased 0.2% to 97.22. WTI crude rose 1.2%, or $0.69, to $60.90/bbl.

[…]

• Total housing starts increased 3.2% m/m to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.365 million (Briefing.com consensus 1.340 million) while total building permits increased 1.4% m/m to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.482 million (Briefing.com consensus 1.400 million).
o The report contained some noise, yet the key takeaway is that single-family starts (+2.4%) and permits (+0.8%) recorded solid increases.
• Industrial production increased 1.1% in November (Briefing.com consensus 0.8%) after declining a revised 0.9% (from -0.8%) in October. The capacity utilization rate increased to 77.3% (Briefing.com consensus 77.4%) from a revised 76.6% (from 76.7%) in October.
o The key takeaway from the report is the November rebound was fueled by the end of the strike at GM. Excluding motor vehicles and parts, industrial production increased 0.5%.
• The October Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey showed job openings increase to 7.267 million from a revised 7.032 million in September (from 7.024 million).