Directional Bias For The Day:

• S&P Futures are lower; price is arching own on 30-minute charts
• The odds are for a down day with elevated volatility – watch for break above 3247.25 for change of fortune
• Key economic data due:
  • Trade Balance ( -43.1B vs. -44.5B est. ; prev. -46.9B ) at 8:30 AM
  • ISM Non-Manufacturing PMI ( 54.5 est. ; prev. 53.9) at 10:00 AM
  • Factory Orders ( -0.6% est.; prev. 0.3%) at 10:00 AM

Directional Bias Before Open:

Key Levels:

• Critical support levels for S&P 500 are 3222.34, 3212.03 and 3204.10
• Critical resistance levels for S&P 500 are 3234.54, 3246.15 and 3257.54
• Key levels for eMini futures: break above 3247.25, the high of 7:30 AM and break below 3235.75, the low of 2:00 PM on Monday

Pre-Open

• On Monday, at 4:00 PM, S&P future (March 2020) closed at 3246.50 and the index closed at 3246.28 – a spread of about +0.25 points; futures closed at 3243.50 for the day; the fair value is +3.00
• Pre-NYSE session open, futures are mixed – at 9:00 AM, S&P 500 futures were down by -4.00; Dow down by -33 and NASDAQ up by +12.50

Markets Around The World

• Markets in the East closed higher
• European markets are mostly up – Spain is down
• Currencies:
  

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

• Commodities:
  

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

• Bonds
  • 10-yrs yield closed at 1.809%, up from January 3 close of 1.788%;
  • 30-years is at 2.292%, up from 2.249%
  • 2-years yield is at 1.536%, up from 1.533%
  • The 10-Year-&-2-Year spread is at 0.273 up from 0.255
• VIX
  • Is at 14.09 up from January 6 close of 13.85; above 5-day SMA
  • Recent high was 17.99 on December 3; recent low was 11.72 on December 26

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

Previous Session

Major U.S. indices closed mostly higher on Monday, January 6 in mostly lower volume. Dow Jones Transportation Average closed lower and Dow Jones Industrial Average traded in higher volume. Most major indices gapped down at the open but then closed above the opens and made bullish engulfing candles.

From Briefing.com:

The S&P 500 declined as much as 0.6% shortly after Monday’s open as tensions escalated in the Middle East, but a rebound led by mega-cap technology stocks helped the benchmark index close at session highs with a 0.4% gain. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.2%, the Nasdaq Composite gained 0.6%, and the Russell 2000 gained 0.1%.

[…]

The S&P 500 communication services sector (+1.2%) was today’s sector leader, largely due to the 2.5% gain in shares of Alphabet (GOOG 1394.21, +33.55) after the stock was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Pivotal Research Group.

[…]

U.S. Treasuries finished the session on a lower note, as investors bought the dip in equities. The 2-yr yield increased three basis points to 1.54%, and the 10-yr yield increased two basis points to 1.81%. The U.S. Dollar Index declined 0.2% to 96.66.