Directional Bias For The Day:

• S&P Futures are higher;
• The odds are for an up day with a good chance of sideways move from pre-open levels – watch for a break below 3903.50 for change of fortunes
• Key economic data report due during the day:
  • Flash Manufacturing PMI ( 58.4 est.; prev. 59.2) at 9:45 AM
  • Flash Services PMI ( 57.9 est.; prev. 58.3) at 9:45 AM
  • Existing Home Sales ( 6.59M est.; prev. 6.76M ) at 10:00 AM

Directional Bias Before Open:

Key Levels:

• Critical support levels for S&P 500 are 3911.78, 3895.77, and 3885.38
• Critical resistance levels for S&P 500 are 3927.60, 3940.88, and 3950.06
• Key levels for E-mini futures: break above 3936.00, the high of 7:30 PM on February 17 and break below 3903.50, the low of 3:30 AM

Pre-Open

• On Thursday at 4:00 PM, S&P futures (March 2021) closed at 3911.00 and the index closed at 3913.97 – a spread of about -3.00 points; futures closed at 3909.50 for the day; the fair value is +1.50
• Pre-NYSE session open, futures are higher – at 8:00 AM, S&P 500 futures were up by +15.25; Dow by +87, and NASDAQ by +77.00

Markets Around The World

• Markets in the East closed mixed – Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Seoul closed up; Tokyo, Sydney, Mumbai, and Singapore closed down;
• European markets are higher
• Currencies (from two weeks ago):
  

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

• Commodities (from two weeks ago):
  • Energy futures are higher
  • Precious metals are mixed
  • Industrial metals are higher
  • Most soft commodities are mostly higher
• Treasuries (from two weeks ago)
  • 10-years yield closed at 1.287%, up 14.8 BP from two weeks ago;
  • 30-years is at 2.076%, up 14.3 BP;
  • 2-years yield is at 0.105%, down 2.0 BP;
  • The 10-Year-&-2-Year spread is at 1.182, up from 1.014
• VIX
  • At 22.12 @ 7:30 AM; down from the last close; above 5-day SMA;
  • Recent high =  37.51 on January 29; low =  19.69 on February 10
  • Sentiment: Risk-Off

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

Previous Session

Major U.S. indices closed lower on Thursday, February 18 in mixed volume. Dow Jones Industrial Average, Dow Jones Transportation Average, and Russell 2000 traded in lower volume. Indices are near all-time highs and made candlestick formations. Indices opened lower and then traded down in the early trading before turning around late morning. For the rest of the day, they traded higher and closed near the highs for the day.

From Briefing.com:

The S&P 500 declined 0.4% on Thursday, although it was down as much as 1.2% in the morning. The Nasdaq Composite (-0.7%) and Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.4%) also closed well off session lows, while the Russell 2000 (-1.7%) struggled throughout the session. […] The information technology sector, for example, declined 0.5% after being down 1.7% intraday, and the consumer discretionary sector (+0.1%) overcame a 1.1% intraday decline. […] The 2-yr yield was unchanged at 0.10%. The U.S. Dollar Index decreased 0.4% to 90.56. WTI crude futures decreased 1.2%, or $0.70, to $60.42/bbl. […] Initial jobless claims for the week ending February 13 increased by 13,000 to 861,000 (Briefing.com consensus 775,000). Continuing claims for the week ending February 6 decreased by 64,000 to 4.494 million. […] Housing starts declined 6.0% m/m in January to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.580 million units (Briefing.com consensus 1.670 million). Building permits increased 10.4% m/m to 1.881 million (Briefing.com consensus 1.670 million). […] The Philadelphia Fed Index decreased to 23.1 in February (Briefing.com consensus 15.0) from an unrevised 26.5 in January. Import prices increased 1.4% in January while import prices excluding oil increased 0.8%. Export prices increased 2.5% in January while export prices excluding agriculture increased 2.2%. […] Russell 2000 +12.3% YTD Nasdaq Composite +7.6% YTD S&P 500 +4.2% YTD Dow Jones Industrial Average +2.9% YTD