Directional Bias For The Day:

• S&P Futures are higher; moving mostly sideways since 1:00 AM
• The odds are for an up day; good odds for sideways move from pre-open levels; high volatility – watch for break above 2588.00 and below 2564.00 for more clarity
• No key economic data due:

Directional Bias Before Open:

Key Levels:

• Critical support levels for S&P 500 are 2538.18, 2497.10 and 2459.96
• Critical resistance levels for S&P 500 are 2571.15, 2612.09 and 2641.39
• Key levels for eMini futures: break above 2586.75, the high of 2:00 AM and break below 2564.00, the low of 8:00 AM

Pre-Open

• On Friday at 4:00 PM, S&P future (June 2020) closed at 2479.25 and the index closed at 2488.65 – a spread of about -9.25 points; futures closed at 2482.75 for the day; the fair value is -3.50
• Pre-NYSE session open, futures are higher – at 8:45 AM, S&P 500 futures were up by +93.25; Dow by +748 and NASDAQ by +280.25

Markets Around The World

• Markets in the East closed higher – Shanghai and Mumbai were closed
• European markets are higher
• Currencies:
  

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

• Commodities:
  

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

• Bond
  • 10-yrs yield is at 0.646%, up from April 3 close of 0.587%;
  • 30-years is at 1.267%, up from 1.214%
  • 2-years yield is at 0.264% up from 0.225%
  • The 10-Year-&-2-Year spread is at 0.382 up from 0.362
• VIX
  • Is at 43.99 down -2.81 from April 3 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 lower on Friday, April 3 in mostly lower volume. Dow Jones Transportation Average traded in lower volume. Most indices made red harami candle. Russell 200 was an exception.

For the week, major U.S. indices closed down. Most international indices also closed lower. Sydney, Seoul and Switzerland closed up. All but three S&P sectors – Consumer Staples, Energy and Healthcare – closed lower.

From Briefing.com:

The stock market ended a down week on a lower note, though the S&P 500 (-1.5%) was able to remain above its low from Wednesday. The benchmark index surrendered 2.1% for the week. Small caps had a more difficult go, as the Russell 2000 (-3.1%) lost 7.1% for the week, stopping a bit above its March low.

[…]

Ten out of eleven sectors ended in the red with six sectors logging wider losses than the broader market. Utilities (-3.6%), materials (-2.3%), and financials (-2.2%) were at the forefront of the selling while real estate (-0.8%) and consumer staples (+0.5%) outperformed.

[…]

Longer-dated Treasuries finished near their best levels of the day, sending the 10-yr yield lower by four basis points to 0.59%.
The U.S. Dollar Index climbed 0.4% to 100.61, gaining 2.2% for the week.

[…]

• March nonfarm payrolls declined by 701,000 (Briefing.com consensus -150,000) while February nonfarm payrolls were revised to 275,000 from 273,000. March private sector payrolls declined by 713,000 (Briefing.com consensus -250,000) while February private sector payrolls were revised to 242,000 from 228,000.
• March unemployment rate was 4.4% (Briefing.com consensus 4.0%), versus 3.5% in February. Persons unemployed for 27 weeks or more accounted for 15.9% of the unemployed versus 19.2% in February. The U6 unemployment rate, which accounts for unemployed and underemployed workers, was 8.7%, versus 7.0% in February.
• March average hourly earnings were up 0.4% (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%) after increasing 0.3% in February while average workweek decreased to 34.2 hours (Briefing.com consensus 34.0) from 34.4 hours in February.
o The key takeaway from the report is that it still isn’t adequately capturing the full extent of the weakness in the labor market. Things are even worse than the headlines here suggest, as yesterday’s initial claims report made abundantly clear. Those filings are not embedded in today’s report, which was formulated mostly on the basis of an employment survey conducted the week of March 12. In actuality, the unemployment rate is likely closer to 10.0% at this juncture
• The ISM Non-Manufacturing Index for March checked in at 52.5% (Briefing.com consensus 43.0%) versus 57.3% in February. The dividing line between expansion and contraction is 50.0%.
o The key takeaway from the report is that it’s not as encouraging as it appears to be, having been bolstered by a nice pickup in the Supplier Deliveries Index (to 62.1% from 52.4%), which reflects slower deliveries due to the COVID-19 impact; moreover, it is understood that the services sector has been the hardest hit in the sudden economic stop and that this measure does not adequately capture the real-time change in business conditions.