Directional Bias For The Day:

• S&P Futures are higher
• The odds are for a sideways to an up day – watch for a break above 4176.00  and a break below 4163.75 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 4172.50, 4161.99, and 4153.26
• Critical resistance levels for S&P 500 are 4194.17, 4203.30, and 4226.43
• Key levels for E-mini futures: break above 4176.00, the high of 12:00 AM and break below 4163.75, the low of 6:00 AM

Pre-Open

• On Friday at 4:00 PM, S&P futures (June 2021) closed at 4170.50 and the index closed at 4180.17 – a spread of about -9.75 points; futures closed at 4171.50 for the day; the fair value is -1.00
• Pre-NYSE session open, futures are mixed – at 8:45 AM, S&P 500 futures were up by +2.25; Dow up by +56, and NASDAQ down by -5.75

Markets Around The World

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

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

• Commodities (from two weeks ago):
  • Energy futures are mixed
  • Precious metals are lower
  • Industrial metals are higher
  • Most soft commodities are mostly higher
• Treasuries (from two weeks ago)
  • 10-years yield closed at 1.579%, down -8.7 basis points from two weeks ago;
  • 30-years is at 2.251%, down -8.8 basis points;
  • 2-years yield is at 0.158%, up +0.5 basis points;
  • The 10-Year-&-2-Year spread is at 1.421, down from 1.513
• VIX
  • At 18.01 @ 7:45 AM; down from the last close; at 5-day SMA;
  • Recent high =  23.55 on March 25; low =  15.38 on April 14
  • Sentiment: Risk-Neutral-to-On

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

Previous Session

Major U.S. indices closed higher on Friday, April 23 in mostly lower volume.  Dow Jones Industrial Average traded in higher volume. Most major indices made Bullish Engulfing or similar bullish candlestick formations.

For the week major indices closed mixed in higher volume. Russell 2000, Dow Jones Transportations Average, and NYSE Composite closed higher. Markets in Asia and Europe were mostly lower. The dollar index and precious metals down and most other commodities were up. The US Treasury yields nudged down.

From Briefing.com:

The S&P 500 advanced 1.1% on Friday, recouping all of yesterday’s tax-related decline, as investors bought the dip in most sectors of the market. The Nasdaq Composite (+1.4%) and Russell 2000 (+1.8%) outpaced the benchmark index while the Dow Jones Industrial Average trailed with a 0.7% gain. […] Gains were spread across nine of the 11 S&P 500 sectors in a steady advance led by the financials (+1.9%), materials (+1.7%), and information technology (+1.4%) sectors. The resilient nature of the market presumably rekindled a fear of missing out on further gains and possibly short-covering activity. […] The 2-yr yield increased one basis point to 0.15%, and the 10-yr yield increased one basis point to 1.57%. The U.S. Dollar Index declined 0.6% to 90.82. WTI crude futures settled higher by 1.1%, or $0.70, to $62.15/bbl. On a related note, California Governor Newsome announced that the state will stop issuing new fracking permits by 2024. […] New home sales surged 20.7% month-over-month in March to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.021 million (Briefing.com consensus 912,000) from an upwardly revised 846,000 (from 775,000) in February. March marked the highest annual rate for new home sales since August 2006. On a yr/yr basis, new home sales were up a whopping 66.8%, having lapped a very depressed comparison period due to the pandemic. […] The preliminary IHS Markit Manufacturing PMI for April increased to 60.6 from 59.1 in March. The preliminary IHS Markit Services PMI for April increased to 63.1 from 60.4 in March. […] Russell 2000 +15.0% YTD S&P 500 +11.3% YTD Dow Jones Industrial Average +11.2% YTD Nasdaq Composite +8.8% YTD