Directional Bias For The Day:

• S&P Futures are higher; the daily bias is sideways to down
• The odds are for an up day with a good chance of sideways to down move from the pre-open levels around 3850.00 – watch for a break above 3858.50 and break below 3843.25 for clarity
• Key economic data report due during the day:
  • Final Manufacturing PMI (58.5 est.; prev. 58.5) at 9:45 AM
  • ISM Manufacturing PMI ( 58.7 est.; prev. 58.7) at 10:00 AM
  • Construction Spending ( 0.7% est.; prev. 1.0%) at 10:00 AM
  • ISM Manufacturing Prices ( 80.0 est.; prev. 82.1) at 10:00 AM

Directional Bias Before Open:

Key Levels:

• Critical support levels for S&P 500 are 3902.92, 3895.95, and 3859.60
• Critical resistance levels for S&P 500 are 3916.74, 3928.65, and 3933.61
• Key levels for E-mini futures: break above 3924.75, the high of 6:00 AM and break below 3896.50, the high of 7:45 AM on Wednesday

Pre-Open

• On Friday at 4:00 PM, S&P futures (March 2021) closed at 3805.50 and the index closed at 3811.15 – a spread of about -5.75 points; futures closed at 3809.25 for the day; the fair value is -3.75
• Pre-NYSE session open, futures are higher – at 8:45 AM, S&P 500 futures were up by +44.00; Dow by +360, and NASDAQ by +165.50

Markets Around The World

• Markets in the East closed higher – Seoul was closed
• European markets are higher
• Currencies (from two weeks ago):
  

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

• Commodities (from two weeks ago):
  • Energy futures are mixed
  • Precious metals are lower
  • Industrial metals are mostly lower
  • Most soft commodities are mostly higher
• Treasuries (from two weeks ago)
  • 10-years yield closed at 1.348%, up 22.9 BP from two weeks ago;
  • 30-years is at 2.217%, up 21.4 BP;
  • 2-years yield is at 0.1390%, up 3.0 BP;
  • The 10-Year-&-2-Year spread is at 1.300, up from 1.091
• VIX
  • At 24.83 @ 8:15 AM; down from the last close; below 5-day SMA;
  • Recent high =  31.16 on February 25; low =  19.69 on February 10
  • Sentiment: Risk-On

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

Previous Session

Major U.S. indices closed mostly lower on Friday, February 26 in mostly lower volume. NASDAQ Composite and Russell 2000 closed up. Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500  traded in lower volume. Indices opened lower and then traded down for the day with a small bounce in the afternoon, which did not last. All S&P sectors closed lower.

For the week, major indices closed mostly own in higher volume. Dow Jones Transportation Average was up. Markets in Asia and Europe were mostly down. The dollar index was up and commodities were mixed. The US Treasury yields closed higher and all but one – Energy – S&P sectors closed down for the week.

From Briefing.com:

The S&P 500 decreased 0.5% on Friday in a mostly negative session. A modest bounce in the growth stocks lifted the Nasdaq Composite (+0.6%) to a positive close, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 1.5% amid weakness in many of its value-oriented components. The Russell 2000 (+0.04%) finished little changed. […] The 10-yr yield decreased six basis points to 1.46%. The 2-yr yield decreased three basis points to 0.13%. The U.S. Dollar Index rose 0.9% to 90.92. […] Personal income, bolstered by government social benefits, soared 10.0% m/m in January (Briefing.com consensus 9.7%). Personal spending increased 2.4% m/m (Briefing.com consensus +2.3%). The PCE Price Index and Core PCE Price Index, which excludes food and energy, were both up 0.3%. That left yr/yr price changes at 1.5% (from 1.3% in December) and 1.5% (from 1.4% in December), respectively. […] The final reading for the February University of Michigan Index of Consumer Sentiment was revised up to 76.8 (Briefing.com consensus 76.4) from the preliminary reading of 76.2. The final February reading was below the final reading of 79.0 for January. […] The Chicago PMI for February decreased to 59.5 (Briefing.com consensus 60.0) from an unrevised 63.8 in December. The Advance report for International Trade in Goods for January showed a deficit of $83.7 billion versus $83.2 billion in December. The Advance report for Retail Inventories for January decreased 0.6%, while the Advance report for Wholesale Inventories for January increased 1.3%. […] Russell 2000 +11.5% YTD Nasdaq Composite +2.4% YTD S&P 500 +1.5% YTD Dow Jones Industrial Average +1.1% YTD