Directional Bias For The Day:

• S&P Futures are higher;
• The odds are for a sideways to an up day; watch for break below 3392.50 and break below 3372.25 for clarity
• Key economic data due:
  • Building Permits (1.55M vs. 1.45M est.; prev. 1.42M) at 8:30 AM
  • Core PPI (0.5% vs. 0.2% est.; prev. 0.1%) at 8:30 AM
  • PPI (0.5% vs. 0.1% est.; prev. 0.1%) at 8:30 AM
  • Housing Starts ( 1.57M vs. 1.40M est.; prev. 1.63M) at 8:30 AM

Directional Bias Before Open:

Key Levels:

• Critical support levels for S&P 500 are 3355.70, 3334.29 and 3317.77
• Critical resistance levels for S&P 500 are 3379.95, 3385.09 and 3397.73
• Key levels for eMini futures: break above 3382.50, the high of 11:00 PM and break below 3372.25, the low of 8:00 PM

Pre-Open

• On Tuesday, at 4:00 PM, S&P future (March 2020) closed at 3370.00 and the index closed at 3370.29 – a spread of about -0.25 points; futures closed at 3369.25 for the day; the fair value is +0.75
• Pre-NYSE session open, futures are higher – at 9:00 AM, S&P 500 futures were up by +11.00; Dow by +88 and NASDAQ by +49.00

Markets Around The World

• Markets in the East closed mostly higher – Shanghai was down;
• European markets are higher
• Currencies:
  

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

• Commodities:
  

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

• Bonds
  • 10-yrs yield closed at 1.571%, down from February 14 close of 1.588%;
  • 30-years is at 2.018%, down from 2.043%
  • 2-years yield is at 1.407%, down from 1.424%
  • The 10-Year-&-2-Year spread is at 0.164 unchanged
• VIX
  • Is at 14.23 down -0.60 from February 18 close; above 5-day SMA
  • Next high resistance is 19.99, the high of January 31; the low support is the low of 13.38 on February 14

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

Previous Session

Major U.S. indices closed mixed on Tuesday, February 18 in mixed volume. NASDAQ Composite and Dow Jones Transportation Average closed higher. S&P 500 and Russell 200 traded in lower volume. Most indices made doji like indecisive candles. Only two S&P sectors – Utilities and Real Estate – closed up.

From Briefing.com:

The S&P 500 declined as much as 0.7% on Tuesday after Apple (AAPL 319.00, -5.95, -1.8%) provided a revenue warning due to the coronavirus. The market resiliently cut its losses during the afternoon, though, leaving the S&P 500 down 0.3% for the session.

The Nasdaq Composite (+0.02%) eked out a closing record, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.6%) and Russell 2000 (-0.2%) still finished lower.

[…]

The 2-yr yield declined two basis points to 1.40%, and the 10-yr yield declined three basis points to 1.56%. The U.S. Dollar Index rose 0.4% to 99.43. WTI crude inched up 0.1% (+$0.05) to $52.10/bbl, recouping its intraday losses.

[…]

• The Empire State Manufacturing Survey for February increased to 12.9 (Briefing.com consensus 6.3) from the prior month’s reading of 4.8.
• The NAHB Housing Market Index for February declined to 74 (Briefing.com consensus 75) from 75 in January.