Directional Bias For The Day:

• S&P Futures are lower;
• The daily bias is sideways to down
• The odds are for a sideways to down day – watch for a break above 3897.00 and break below 3866.25 for clarity
• No key economic data report due during the day:

Directional Bias Before Open:

Key Levels:

• Critical support levels for S&P 500 are 3888.59, 3862.91, and 3842.51
• Critical resistance levels for S&P 500 are 3901.33, 3910.28, and 3914.50
• Key levels for E-mini futures: break above 3897.00, the high of 7:45 AM and break below 3866.25, the low of 4:00 AM

Pre-Open

• On Monday at 4:00 PM, S&P futures (March 2021) closed at 3897.75 and the index closed at 3901.82 – a spread of about -4.00 points; futures closed at 3898.75 for the day; the fair value is -1.00
• Pre-NYSE session open, futures are lower – at 8:30 AM, S&P 500 futures were down by -8.25; Dow by -58, and NASDAQ by -33.50

Markets Around The World

• Markets in the East closed mixed – Shanghai, Hong Kong, Tokyo, and Sydney closed lower; Mumbai, Seoul, and Singapore closed higher
• European markets are mostly higher – Italy is down
• 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 lower
  • Precious metals are lower
  • Industrial metals are lower
  • Most soft commodities are mostly lower
• Treasuries (from two weeks ago)
  • 10-years yield closed at 1.450%, up 15.1 BP from two weeks ago;
  • 30-years is at 2.239%, up 14.9 BP;
  • 2-years yield is at 0.121%, down 0.4 BP;
  • The 10-Year-&-2-Year spread is at 1.329, up from 1.174
• VIX
  • At 23.04 @ 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-Off-Neutral

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

Previous Session

Major U.S. indices closed higher on Monday, March 1 in mostly lower volume. Dow Jones Transportation Average traded in higher volume. Indices opened higher and then traded up for most of the day with a small retracement in the final hour of trading.

From Briefing.com:

The S&P 500 rallied 2.4% on Monday, as investors indiscriminately bought last week’s dip amid a host of positive-sounding developments. The Nasdaq Composite (+3.0%) and Russell 2000 (+3.4%) rose at least 3.0%, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average (+2.0%) followed behind with a 2.0% gain. All 11 S&P 500 sectors contributed to the steady advance, eight of which advanced more than 2.0%. The information technology (+3.2%) and financials (+3.1%) sectors finished as influential leaders, while the real estate sector (+0.2%) underperformed with a modest gain after a strong start. […] The 2-yr yield decreased two basis points to 0.12%, and the 10-yr yield decreased one basis point to 1.45%. The U.S. Dollar Index increased 0.2% to 91.04. WTI crude futures decreased 1.5%, or $0.91, to $60.54/bbl ahead of an OPEC+ meeting later this week. […] The ISM Manufacturing Index for February jumped to 60.8% (Briefing.com consensus 58.8%) from 58.7% in January, matching the August 2018 reading as the highest since May 2004. The dividing line between expansion and contraction is 50.0%. February marked the ninth straight month the ISM Manufacturing Index has been above 50.0%. […] Total construction spending increased 1.7% m/m in January (Briefing.com consensus 0.6%) after increasing an upwardly revised 1.1% (from 1.0%) in December. Total private construction spending rose 1.7% m/m and total public construction spending increased 1.7%. […] The February IHS Markit Manufacturing PMI increased to 58.6 from 58.5 in January. […] Russell 2000 +15.2% YTD Nasdaq Composite +5.4% YTD S&P 500 +3.9% YTD Dow Jones Industrial Average +3.0% YTD