Directional Bias For The Day:

• S&P Futures are little changed;
• Futures are declining since 7:45 from a high of 3896.50, a resistance zone; gave up all pre-open gains
• The odds are for a sideways day within a large range – watch for a break above 3896.50 and break below 3851.75 for clarity
• Key economic data report due during the day:
  • New Home Sales ( 853K vs. 1.0% est.; prev. 842K) at 10:00 AM
  • Fed Chair Powell’s Testimony

Directional Bias Before Open:

Key Levels:

• Critical support levels for S&P 500 are 3854.79, 3832.56, and 3805.59
• Critical resistance levels for S&P 500 are 3895.95, 3902.92, and 3916.23
• Key levels for E-mini futures: break above 3896.50, the high of 7:00 AM and break below 3851.75, the low of 1:30 AM

Pre-Open

• On Tuesday at 4:00 PM, S&P futures (March 2021) closed at 3878.00 and the index closed at 3881.37 – a spread of about -3.50 points; futures closed at 3878.00 for the day; the fair value is +0.00
• Pre-NYSE session open, futures are mixed – at 8:45 AM, S&P 500 futures were up by 1.00; Dow down by -24, and NASDAQ down by -27.50

Markets Around The World

• Markets in the East closed mostly lower – Mumbai and Singapore closed up
• European markets are higher
• Currencies (from two weeks ago):
  

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

• Commodities (from two weeks ago):
  • Energy futures are mixed
  • Precious metals are higher
  • Industrial metals are mostly lower
  • Most soft commodities are mostly higher
• Treasuries (from two weeks ago)
  • 10-years yield closed at 1.396%, up 23.9 BP from two weeks ago;
  • 30-years is at 2.262%, up 31.5 BP;
  • 2-years yield is at 0.1276%, up 0.228 BP;
  • The 10-Year-&-2-Year spread is at 1.276, up from 1.048
• VIX
  • At 23.26 @ 6:45 AM; up from the last close; above 5-day SMA;
  • Recent high =  27.01 on February 23; 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 mixed on Tuesday, February 23 in mostly higher volume. S&P 500, Dow Jones Industrial Average, Dow Jones Transportation Average, and NYSE Composite closed higher. DTRAN traded in lower volume. Indices are near all-time highs. Indices opened lower and then traded down in early morning trading making the day’s lows in the first hour. Then they turned around and mostly closed traded higher for the rest of the day, closing in the upper half of the day’s range.

From Briefing.com:

The S&P 500 increased 0.1% on Tuesday, overcoming an early 1.8% decline in one of its more resilient sessions of the year. The Dow Jones Industrial Average increased 0.1% after being down 1.2% intraday, while the Nasdaq Composite (-0.5%) and Russell 2000 (-0.9%) decreased modestly after both were down more than 3.5% intraday. […] The U.S. Treasury market was a little more stable today, which might have supported risk sentiment. The 2-yr yield decreased one basis point to 0.10%, and the 10-yr yield decreased one basis point to 1.36%. The U.S. Dollar Index increased 0.2% to 90.14. WTI crude futures were little changed at $61.68/bbl. […] The Conference Board’s Consumer Confidence Index increased to 91.3 in February (Briefing.com consensus 91.0) from a downwardly revised 88.9 (from 89.3) in January. […] The FHFA Housing Price Index increased 1.1% in February following a 1.0% increase in January. The S&P Case-Shiller Home Price Index increased 10.1% in December (Briefing.com consensus 9.8%) following an upwardly revised 9.2% reading in November (from +9.1%). […] Russell 2000 +13.0% YTD Nasdaq Composite +4.5% YTD S&P 500 +3.3% YTD Dow Jones Industrial Average +3.0% YTD