Directional Bias For The Day:

• S&P Futures are lower;
• The odds are for a down day, with a good chance of sideways to up move from the pre-open level near 3815.00; watch for a break above 3831.25
• Key economic data report due during the day:
  • Flash Manufacturing PMI ( 56.6 est.; prev. 57.1) at 9:45 AM
  • Flash Services PMI (53.3 est.; prev. 54.8) at 9:45 AM
  • Existing Home Sales ( 6.55M est.; prev. 6.69M) at 10:00 AM

Directional Bias Before Open:

Key Levels:

• Critical support levels for S&P 500 are 3834.45, 3816.22, and 3804.53
• Critical resistance levels for S&P 500 are 3845.05, 3852.34, and 3861.22
• Key levels for E-mini futures: break above 3831.25, the high of 4:00 AM and break below 3808.25, the high of 6:00 AM on Wednesday

Pre-Open

• On Thursday at 4:00 PM, S&P futures (March 2021) closed at 3846.25 and the index closed at 3853.07 – a spread of about -6.75 points; futures closed at 3846.00 for the day; the fair value is +0.25
• Pre-NYSE session open, futures are lower – at 7:45 AM, S&P 500 futures were down by -30.00; Dow by -263, and NASDAQ by -86.00

Markets Around The World

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

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

• Commodities (from two weeks ago):
  • Energy futures are lower
  • Precious metals are higher
  • Industrial metals are mostly lower
  • Most soft commodities are mixed
• Treasuries (from two weeks ago)
  • 10-years yield closed at 1.109%, up 3.8 BP from two weeks ago;
  • 30-years is at 1.872%, up 2.7 BP;
  • 2-years yield is at 0.129%, down 1.2 BP;
  • The 10-Year-&-2-Year spread is at 0.980, up from 0.930
• VIX
  • At 23.34 @ 6:30 AM; up from the last close; above 5-day SMA;
  • Recent high =  29.19 on January 4; low =  20.99 on December 29
  • Sentiment: Risk-Off

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

Previous Session

Major U.S. indices closed mostly lower on Thursday, January 21 in mixed volume. S&P 500 and NASDAQ Composite closed higher. Dow Jone Industrial Average and Dow Jones Transportation Average traded in higher volume. Most indices made small candles and are maintaining the break above a small trading range that was in effect since January 7. Major indices are near all-time highs.

From Briefing.com:

The Nasdaq Composite (+0.6%) and S&P 500 (+0.03%) closed at new record highs on Thursday, largely due to continued strength in several mega-cap stocks that disproportionately benefited the Nasdaq. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.04%) finished on the negative side of its flat line, and the Russell 2000 declined 0.9%. […] These household names propped up the S&P 500 information technology (+1.3%), consumer discretionary (+0.6%), and communication services (+0.3%) sectors. Semiconductor, homebuilding, and retail stocks also contributed to their positive performances.  These were the only S&P sectors that closed higher, though. The energy sector (-3.4%) succumbed to profit-taking interest that trimmed its monthly gain to 11.5%. The materials (-1.5%), financials (-1.1%), and industrials (-0.8%) sectors also finished as laggards. […] Longer-dated U.S. Treasuries finished on a lower note. The 2-yr yield was flat at 0.12%, and the 10-yr yield increased two basis points to 1.11%. The U.S. Dollar Index declined 0.4% to 90.08. WTI crude futures declined 0.3%, or $0.16, to $53.12/bbl. […] Initial claims for the week ending January 16 declined by 26,000 to 900,000 (Briefing.com consensus 845,000). Continuing claims for the week ending January 9 decreased by 127,000 to 5.054 million. […] Housing starts increased 5.8% m/m in December to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.669 million (Briefing.com consensus 1.560 million). That was the strongest pace of starts since September 2006. Building permits rose 4.5% m/m to 1.709 million (Briefing.com consensus 1.600 million), which was the strongest pace since August 2006. […] The Philadelphia Fed Index jumped to 26.5 in January (Briefing.com consensus 12.0) from an upwardly revised 9.1 in December (from 8.5). [….] Russell 2000 +8.4% YTD Nasdaq Composite +5.0% YTD S&P 500 +2.6% YTD Dow Jones Industrial Average +1.9% YTD