Directional Bias For The Day:

• S&P Futures are higher at 9:00 AM; moving sideways to down since 4:45 AM
• The odds are for an up day with elevated volatility with a good chance of a sideways to down move from pre-open levels around 3900.00 – watch for a break above 3909.50 and break below 3878.00 for clarity
• No key economic data report due during the day:

Directional Bias Before Open:

Key Levels:

• Critical support levels for S&P 500 are 3880.94, 3863.62, and 3851.79
• Critical resistance levels for S&P 500 are 3908.62, 3917.96, and 3937.14
• Key levels for E-mini futures: break above 3909.50, the high at 4:45 AM and a break below 3878.00, the low at 12:15 AM

Pre-Open

• On Friday at 4:00 PM, S&P futures (September 2022) closed at 3865.50,  and the index closed at 3863.16 – a spread of about +2.25 points; the futures closed at 3865.50; the fair value is +0.50
• Pre-NYSE session open, futures are higher – at 9:00 AM, S&P 500 futures were up by +28.75, Dow by +269; and NASDAQ by +114.75

Markets Around The World

• Markets in the East closed higher – Tokyo was closed
• European markets are mostly higher – Spain is lower
• Currencies (Compared to two weeks ago):
  

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

• Commodities (Compared to two weeks ago):
  • Energy futures are mixed
  • Precious metals are lower
  • Industrial metals are mostly lower
  • Soft commodities are mostly lower
• Treasuries (Compared to two weeks ago)
  • The 10-year yield closed at 2.930%, up +4.1 basis points from two weeks ago;
  • The 30-year is at 3.094%, down -2.2 basis points;
  • The 2-year yield is at 3.128%, up +29.1 basis points;
  • The 10-Year-&-2-Year spread is at -0.198, up from 0.052
  • The 30-Year-&-10-Year spread is at 0.164, up from 0.227
• VIX
  • At 24.98 @ 9:30 AM; up from the last close; below the 5-day SMA;
  • Recent high = 29.06 on July 13; low = 24.13 on July 15
  • Sentiment: Risk-On

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

Previous Session

Major U.S. indices closed mostly higher on Friday, July 15, in mostly higher volume. S&P 500 traded in higher volume. The market gapped up at the open and then mostly traded higher for the rest of the day.

For the week, major US indices closed lower in higher volume. Most markets in Asia and European closed lower. The dollar index closed up, the energy futures were mixed, the metals futures were down, and most soft commodities were down. The US Treasury yields closed down.

From Briefing.com:

[…] The major indices closed decidedly higher with the Dow Jones Industrial Average leading, up 2.2%. Despite the strong finish, the DJIA still lost 0.2% for the week while the S&P 500 fell 0.9%. […] Crude oil, which fell past its 200-day moving average yesterday (93.58) to a level not seen since late February, settled up more than $2.00 today, and up $7.36 or 8.1% off yesterday’s low. […] All 11 sectors closed in the green with countercyclical sectors, utilities (+0.2%) and consumer staples (+0.4%), rounding out the bottom of the pack. […] The 2s10s spread became more inverted this week with the 2-yr note yield up one basis point on the day and week-to-date to 3.13%. The 10-yr note yield dropped notably this week, settling down three basis points on the day and 17 basis points week-to-date to 2.93%. […] Total retail sales increased 1.0% month-over-month (Briefing.com consensus 0.8%) following an upwardly revised 0.1% decrease (from -0.3%) in May. Excluding autos, retail sales increased 1.0% (Briefing.com consensus 0.6%) following an upwardly revised 0.6% increase (from 0.5%) in May. […] Total industrial production decreased 0.2% month-over-month in June (Briefing.com consensus 0.2%) following a downwardly revised flat reading in May (from 0.2%). The capacity utilization rate decreased to 80.0% (Briefing.com consensus 80.0%) from an upwardly revised 80.3% (from 79.0%) in May. […] The preliminary reading of the University of Michigan Index of Consumer Sentiment for July rose to 51.1 (Briefing.com consensus 49.4) from June’s final reading of 50.0. One year ago, the July reading was at 81.2. […] The Empire State Manufacturing survey rose to 11.1 (Briefing.com consensus -0.9) in July from -1.2 in June. Business Inventories increased by 1.4% in May (Briefing.com consensus 1.2%) after increasing a revised 1.3% (from 1.2%) in April. Import prices rose 0.2% in June after increasing a revised 0.5% (from 0.6%) in May. Excluding oil, import prices fell 0.5% after decreasing 0.3% in May. Export prices rose 0.7% in June after increasing a revised 2.9% (from 2.8%) in May. Excluding agriculture, export prices rose 0.9% after increasing a revised 3.0% (from 2.9%) in May. Dow Jones Industrial Average: -13.9% YTD S&P 400: -18.9% YTD S&P 500: -19.0% YTD Russell 2000: -22.3% YTD Nasdaq Composite: -26.8% YTD