Directional Bias For The Day:

• S&P Futures are higher;
• The odds are for an up to sideways day – watch for a break below 3245.75 for change of sentiments
• Key economic data due:
  • Core PCE Price Index ( 0.2% vs. 0.2% est.; prev. 0.1%) at 8:30 AM
  • Personal Spending ( 5.6% vs. 5.3% est.; prev. 8.2% ) at 8:30 AM
  • Employment Cost Index ( 0.5% vs. 0.6% est.; prev. 0.8%) at 8:30 AM
  • Personal Income ( -1.1% vs. -0.8% est,; prev. -4.2%) at 8:30 AM
  • Chicago PMI ( 44.0 est.; prev. 36.6) at 9:45 AM
  • Revised UoM Consumer Sentiment ( 72.9 est.; prev. 73.2) at 10:00 AM
  • Revised UoM Inflation Expectations ( prev. 3.1%) at 10:00 AM

Directional Bias Before Open:

Key Levels:

• Critical support levels for S&P 500 are 3239.10, 3204.13 and 3198.59
• Critical resistance levels for S&P 500 are 3264.74, 3279.99, and 3295.92
• Key levels for E-mini futures: break above 3263.50, the high of 4:30 AM and break below 3245.75, the low of 1:30 AM

Pre-Open

• On Thursday at 4:00 PM, S&P futures (September 2020) closed at 3239.00 and the index closed at 3246.22 – a spread of about -7.25 points; futures closed at 3248.75 for the day; the fair value is -9.75
• Pre-NYSE session open, futures are higher – at 8:30 AM, S&P 500 futures were up by +9.25; Dow by +40 and NASDAQ by -95.75

Markets Around The World

• Markets in East closed mostly lower – Shanghai was up; Singapore was closed
• European markets are mostly higher – U.K. and Spain are lower
• Currencies:
  

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

• Commodities:
  

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

• Bond
  • 10-yrs yield closed at 0.541%, down from July 29 close of 0.579%;
  • 30-years is at 1.198% down from 1.242%
  • 2-years yield is at 0.121% down from 0.137%
  • The 10-Year-&-2-Year spread is at 0.420 down from 0.442
• VIX
  • Is at 24.68; down -0.08 from July 30 close; at/below 5-day SMA;
  • Recent high 33.67 on July 14; low 23.61 on July 21
  • Sentiment: Risk-Neutral

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

Previous Session

Major U.S. indices closed mostly lower on Thursday, July 30 in mostly higher volume. NASDAQ Composite and Dow Jones Transportation Average closed up. Most S&P sectors closed lower.

From Briefing.com:

The S&P 500 declined as much as 1.7% on Thursday following the release of weak economic data, but a buy-the-dip trade in the mega-cap stocks helped the benchmark index close lower by just 0.4%. The Nasdaq Composite gained 0.4%, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 0.9% and the Russell 2000 lost 0.4%. […] The data appeared to take a toll on the cyclical energy (-4.1%), materials (-2.0%), and financials (-1.8%) sectors, but a turnaround in the mega-caps contributed to the gains in the information technology (+0.5%), communication services (+0.3%), and consumer discretionary (+0.1%) sectors. […] U.S. Treasuries finished the day with modest gains amid today’s weak data. The 2-yr yield declined two basis points to 0.11%, and the 10-yr yield declined four basis points to 0.54%. The U.S. Dollar Index fell another 0.5% to 92.98. WTI crude futures fell 3.2%, or $1.30, to $39.97/bbl. […] Second quarter GDP declined at an annualized rate of 32.9% (Briefing.com consensus -35.0%), which is the worst annualized quarterly decline on record. The GDP Price Deflator declined 1.8% (Briefing.com consensus +0.1%). The key takeaway from the report is its data-based rendering of just how bad things were in the second quarter amidst a self-imposed lockdown to contain the spread of the coronavirus and just how much ground needs to be made up to get back to pre-pandemic levels. Initial claims for the week ending July 25 increased by 12,000 to 1.434 million (Briefing.com consensus 1.400 million). Continuing claims for the week ending July 18 surged by 867,000 to 17.018 million. The key takeaway from this report is that initial claims are moving in the wrong direction (up, not down), signalling that the initial recovery momentum from the depths of the second quarter has slowed.