Directional Bias For The Day:

• S&P Futures are lower 8:45 AM; declining since 11:45 PM; dropped more than 25 points from 8:00 AM
• The odds are for a down day with elevated volatility; watch for a break above 4399.75 for a change of sentiments
• Key economic data report due during the day:
  • Existing Home Sales ( 6.10M est.; prev. 6.18M) at 10:00 AM
  • CB Leading Index ( 0.2% est.; prev. 0.8%) at 10:00 AM

Directional Bias Before Open:

Key Levels:

• Critical support levels for S&P 500 are 4364.84, 4332.40, and 4292.46
• Critical resistance levels for S&P 500 are 4394.30, 4419.42, and 4456.06
• Key levels for E-mini futures: break above 4399.75, the high of 8:00 AM and break below 4359.50, the low of 8:30 AM

Pre-Open

• On Thursday at 4:00 PM, S&P futures (March 2022) closed at 4375.00 and the index closed at 4380.26 – a spread of about -5.25 points; futures closed at 4374.50 for the day; the fair value is +0.50
• Pre-NYSE session open, futures are lower – at 8:30 AM, S&P 500 futures were down by -7.50; Dow by -121; and NASDAQ by -26.50

Markets Around The World

• Markets in the East closed mostly lower – Shanghai and Seoul closed higher
• European markets are lower
• Currencies (Compared to two weeks ago):
  

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

• Commodities (Compared to two weeks ago):
  • Energy futures are mixed
  • Precious metals are higher
  • Industrial metals are mostly higher
  • Soft commodities are mixed
• Treasuries (Compared to two weeks ago)
  • 10-years yield closed at 1.948%, up +12.1 basis points from two weeks ago;
  • 30-years is at 2.277%, up +13.2 basis points;
  • 2-years yield is at 1.471%, up +27.3 basis points;
  • The 10-Year-&-2-Year spread is at 0.477, down from 0.629
  • The 30-Year-&-10-Year spread is at 0.329, down from 0.318
• VIX
  • At 28.02 @ 8:30 AM; down from the last close; above the 5-day SMA;
  • Recent high = 32.04 on February 14; low = 19.93 on February 9
  • Sentiment: Risk-Off

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

Previous Session

Major U.S. indices closed lower on Thursday, February 17, in mostly higher volume. Dow Jones Transportation Average traded in lower volume. The indices opened down and then traded lower for the rest of the day.

From Briefing.com:

The S&P 500 dropped 2.1% on Thursday, as risk sentiment remained pressured by negative-sounding Russia-Ukraine headlines. The Nasdaq Composite (-2.9%) and Russell 2000 (-2.5%) posted steeper declines while the Dow Jones Industrial Average (-1.8%) fared slightly better than the S&P 500. […] Nine of the 11 S&P 500 sectors closed in negative territory, led lower by the information technology (-3.1%), communication services (-3.0%), and consumer discretionary (-2.6%) sectors. The consumer staples (+0.9%) and utilities (+0.1%) sectors closed higher as part of the defensive shift in the market. More specifically, Treasuries saw increased demand, pushing the 10-yr yield down eight basis points to 1.97% and the 2-yr yield down five basis points to 1.47%. Gold futures rose 1.7% to $1902.10/ozt. The CBOE Volatility Index jumped 15.7% to 28.11. The U.S. Dollar Index increased 0.1% to 95.87. […] January housing starts declined 4.1% month-over-month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.638 million units (Briefing.com consensus 1.705 million) and building permits increased 0.7% month-over-month to 1.899 million (Briefing.com consensus 1.750 million). […] Initial jobless claims for the week ending February 12 increased by 23,000 to 248,000 (Briefing.com consensus 220,000) and continuing claims for the week ending February 5 declined by 26,000 to 1.593 million. […} The Philadelphia Fed Index for February decreased to 16.0 (Briefing.com consensus 20.4) from 23.2 in January. […] Dow Jones Industrial Average -5.6% YTD S&P 500 -8.1% YTD Russell 2000 -9.7% YTD Nasdaq Composite -12.3% YTD Overseas:  Europe: DAX -0.7%, FTSE -0.9%, CAC -0.3% Asia: Nikkei -0.8%, Hang Seng +0.3%, Shanghai +0.1% Commodities:  Crude Oil -2.23 @ 91.44 Nat Gas -0.21 @ 4.48 Gold +26.40 @ 1899.90 Silver +0.20 @ 23.82 Copper -0.02 @ 4.52