Directional Bias For The Day:

• S&P Futures are lower at 9:00 AM; moving down from 4361.25  since 3:15 AM after bouncing from 4283.50 at 7:45 PM
• The odds are for a down day with elevated volatility; watch for a break above 4346.56 for a change of sentiments
• Key economic data report due during the day:
  • Non-Farm Employment Change ( 678K vs. 407K est.; prev 481K) at 8:30 AM
  • Unemployment Rate (3.8% vs. 3.9% est.; prev. 4.0%) at 8:30 AM
  • Average Hourly Earnings ( 0.0% vs. 0.5% est.; prev. 0.6%) at 8:30 AM

Directional Bias Before Open:

Key Levels:

• Critical support levels for S&P 500 are 4322.56, 4309.44, and 4279.54
• Critical resistance levels for S&P 500 are 4345.56, 4370.45, and 4397.77
• Key levels for E-mini futures: break above 4346.00, the high of 8:30 AM and break below 4310.00, the low of 7:15 AM

Pre-Open

• On Thursday at 4:00 PM, S&P futures (March 2022) closed at 4360.50 and the index closed at 4363.49 – a spread of about -3.50 points; futures closed at 4359.25 for the day; the fair value is +1.25
• Pre-NYSE session open, futures are lower – at 8:45 AM, S&P 500 futures were down by -41.75; Dow by -328; and NASDAQ by -132.75

Markets Around The World

• Markets in the East closed lower
• European markets are lower
• Currencies (Compared to two weeks ago):
  

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

• Commodities (Compared to two weeks ago):
  • Energy futures are higher
  • Precious metals are higher
  • Industrial metals are mostly higher
  • Soft commodities are mixed
• Treasuries (Compared to two weeks ago)
  • 10-years yield closed at 1.780%, down -19.2 basis points from two weeks ago;
  • 30-years is at 2.184%, down -12.8 basis points;
  • 2-years yield is at 1.540%, up +7.0 basis points;
  • The 10-Year-&-2-Year spread is at 0.240, down from 0.502
  • The 30-Year-&-10-Year spread is at 0.404, up from 0.340
• VIX
  • At 33.58 @ 8:15 AM; up from the last close; above the 5-day SMA;
  • Recent high = 37.79 on February 24; low = 23.88 on February 16
  • Sentiment: Risk-Off (High Volatility)

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

Previous Session

Major U.S. indices closed lower on Thursday, March 3, in mixed volume. Dow Jones Transportation Average, NASDAQ Composite, and Russell 2000 traded in higher volume. Major indices opened up and made day’s high in the first half-hour of trading. Then they declined to day’s lows. They again rose in the late morning and moved sideways in the early afternoon but did not break the day’s highs. In the late afternoon, the indices again declined and closed near the day’s lows.

From Briefing.com:

The S&P 500 lost 0.5% on Thursday in a defensive session, which saw the benchmark index up 0.7% shortly after the open. The Nasdaq Composite (-1.6%) and Russell 2000 (-1.3%) declined more than 1.0% while the Dow Jones Industrial Average declined just 0.3%. […] WTI crude futures settled lower by 2.9%, or $3.23, to $107.81/bbl. […] Investors assumed a defensive mindset, evident by the leadership positions of the S&P 500 utilities (+1.7%), real estate (+1.1%), consumer staples (+0.7%), and health care (+0.5%) sectors. […] Conversely, the consumer discretionary (-2.3%), information technology (-1.2%), and communication services (-0.8%) sectors underperformed amid weakness in the mega-caps. […] The 10-yr yield decreased two basis points to 1.84%, further corroborating the defensive bias, while the 2-yr yield increased two basis points to 1.54%. The U.S. Dollar Index rose 0.4% to 97.74. […] The ISM Non-Manufacturing Index for February decreased to 56.5% (Briefing.com consensus 61.0%) from 59.9% in January. The dividing line between expansion and contraction is 50.0%. The February reading marks the 21st straight month of growth for the services sector, albeit at a slower pace than what was seen in January. […] Initial jobless claims for the week ending February 26 decreased by 18,000 to 215,000 (Briefing.com consensus 226,000) and continuing claims for the week ending February 19 increased by 2,000 to 1.476 million. […] The revised Q4 nonfarm business sector labor productivity showed no change to the advance estimate of 6.6% (Briefing.com consensus 6.7%), as output increased 9.1% and hours worked increased 2.4%. Unit labor costs, though, were revised up to 0.9% (Briefing.com consensus 0.3%) from 0.3% as hourly compensation increased 7.5% versus the 6.6% increase in productivity. […] Factory orders for manufactured goods increased 1.4% m/m in January (Briefing.com consensus 0.5%) following an upwardly revised 0.7% increase (from -0.4%) in December. Shipments of manufactured goods jumped 1.2% after increasing 0.7% in December. […] The final IHS Markit Services PMI for February decreased to 56.5 from 56.7 in the preliminary reading. […] Dow Jones Industrial Average -7.0% YTD S&P 500 -8.5% YTD Russell 2000 -9.5% YTD Nasdaq Composite -13.5% YTD Overseas:  Europe: DAX -2.2%, FTSE -2.6%, CAC -1.8% Asia: Nikkei +0.7%, Hang Seng +0.6%, Shanghai -0.1% Commodities:  Crude Oil -3.23 @ 107.81 Nat Gas -0.03 @ 4.76 Gold +12.60 @ 1935.60 Silver +0.00 @ 25.25 Copper +0.08 @ 4.76