Directional Bias For The Day:

• S&P Futures are lower; gradually rising since 1:00 AM
• The odds are for a sideways to up day from pre-NYSE session levels with high volatility – watch for break below 2487.00 for change of fortune
• Key economic data due:
  • Non-Farm Employment Change ( -700K vs. -100K est.; prev. 2737K ) at 8:30 AM
  • Average Hourly Earnings ( ).4% vs. 0.2% est ; prev. 0.3%) at 8:30 AM
  • Unemployment Rate ( 4.4% vs. 3.8% est.; prev. 3.5%) at 8:30 AM
  • Final Services PMI ( est. 38.7; prev. 39.1) at 10:00 AM
  • ISM Non-Manufacturing PMI ( est. 43.2; prev. 57.3) at 10:00 AM

Directional Bias Before Open:

Key Levels:

• Critical support levels for S&P 500 are 2492.10; 2467.68 and 2447.49
• Critical resistance levels for S&P 500 are 2533.22, 2571.15 and 2612.09
• Key levels for eMini futures: break above 2525.00, the high of 4:00 PM and break below 2474.25, the low of 1:30 AM

Pre-Open

• On Thursday at 4:00 PM, S&P future (June 2020) closed at 2516.00 and the index closed at 2526.50 – a spread of about -14.00 points; futures closed at 2516.50 for the day; the fair value is -0.50
• Pre-NYSE session open, futures are lower – at 8:15 AM, S&P 500 futures were down by -15.75; Dow by -135 and NASDAQ by -43.25

Markets Around The World

• Markets in the East closed mostly lower – Tokyo and Seoul closed up;
• European markets are mixed – Germany, Spain and Switzerland are up; U.K., France, Italy and STOXX 600 are 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
  Crude Oil NatGas Gold Sugar Cotton	Silver Copper Platinum Palladium Coffee Cocoa

• Bond
  • 10-yrs yield closed at 0.627%, down from April 1 close of 0.635%;
  • 30-years is at 1.270%, down from 1.289%
  • 2-years yield is at 0.234% up from 0.211%
  • The 10-Year-&-2-Year spread is at 0.393 down from 0.424
• VIX
  • Is at 50.30 down -0.61 from April 2 close; below 5-day SMA;
  • Down from all time high of 85.47 on March 18

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

Previous Session

Major U.S. indices closed higher on Thursday, April 2 in mixed volume after two down days. Dow Jones Industrial Average and NASDAQ Composite traded in higher volume. Most indices made bullish engulfing candle. Russell 200 was an exception.

From Briefing.com:

[…]

The S&P 500 (+2.3%) and Dow Jones Industrial Average (+2.2%) set the pace with gains over 2.0%, followed by the Nasdaq Composite (+1.7%) and Russell 2000 (+1.3%).

[…]

Nevertheless, the bounce in oil was a much-needed reprieve for companies within the S&P 500 energy sector (+9.1%), which led all sectors in gains by a wide margin. The utilities sector (+3.2%) was next in line, while the consumer discretionary sector (+0.4%) was today’s laggard.

[…]

U.S. Treasuries finished mixed and little changed. The 2-yr yield increased one basis point to 0.23%, while the 10-yr yield declined one basis point to 0.63%. The U.S. Dollar Index increased 0.5% to 100.19.

[…]

• For the week ending March 28, initial claims spiked by 3,341,000 to a seasonally adjusted 6,648,000 (Briefing.com consensus 2,800,000). Continuing claims for the week ending March 21 spiked by 1,245,000 to 3,029,000, which is the highest level since July 6, 2013.
o The key takeaway from the report is that it speaks to how bad things are right now for so many people due to the sudden economic stop, but, unfortunately, the report itself likely still doesn’t reflect the full extent of the layoff picture.
• The trade deficit narrowed to $45.3 billion (Briefing.com consensus -$46.0 billion) in January from an upwardly revised -$48.6 billion ( from -$48.9 bln) in December.
o The key takeaway from the report is that it featured a decline in both exports and imports; however, the understanding that this is a January report (i.e. doesn’t capture the brunt of the coronavirus impact) will diminish market interest in it.
• Factory orders were unchanged m/m in February (Briefing.com consensus +0.3%) following an unrevised 0.5% decline in January. Shipments were down 0.2% m/m in February after decreasing 0.6% in January.
o The key takeaway from the report is that it showed business spending was relatively soft in February, which is expected to give way to an extremely sharp contraction in March.