Directional Bias For The Day:

• S&P Futures are lower
• The odds are for a down day – watch for a break above 4196.25 for change of sentiments clarity
• Key economic data report due during the day:
  • Core PCE Price Index ( 0.4% vs. 0.3% est.; prev. 0.1%) at 8:30 AM
  • Employment Cost Index ( 0.9% vs. 0.7% est.; prev. 0.7%) at 8:30 AM
  • Personal Income  ( 21.1% vs. 20.1% est.; prev. -7.1%) at 8:30 AM
  • Personal Spending ( 4.2% vs. 4.3% est.; prev. -1.0% ) at 8:30 AM
  • Chicago PMI ( 65.4 est.; prev. 66.3) at 9:45 AM
  • Revised UoM Consumer Sentiment ( 87.3 est.; prev. 86.5) at 10:00 AM
  • Revised UoM Inflation Expectations (prev. 3.7%) at 10:00 AM

Directional Bias Before Open:

Key Levels:

• Critical support levels for S&P 500 are 4176.81, 4168.34, and 4153.04
• Critical resistance levels for S&P 500 are 4207.04, 4214.25, and 4227.90
• Key levels for E-mini futures: break above 4196.25, the high of 3:00 AM and break below 4168.00, the low of 12:00 PM on Thursday

Pre-Open

• On Thursday at 4:00 PM, S&P futures (June 2021) closed at 4203.00 and the index closed at 4211.47 – a spread of about -8.50 points; futures closed at 4203.50 for the day; the fair value is -0.50
• Pre-NYSE session open, futures are lower – at 8:00 AM, S&P 500 futures were down by -21.25; Dow by -152, and NASDAQ by -88.00

Markets Around The World

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

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

• Commodities (from two weeks ago):
  • Energy futures are higher
  • Precious metals are lower
  • Industrial metals are mixed
  • Most soft commodities are higher
• Treasuries (from two weeks ago)
  • 10-years yield closed at 1.640%, up +11.0 basis points from two weeks ago;
  • 30-years is at 2.311%, up +10.1 basis points;
  • 2-years yield is at 0.160%, up +0.7 basis points;
  • The 10-Year-&-2-Year spread is at 1.480, up from 1.377
• VIX
  • At 18.41 @ 7:45 AM; up from the last close; above 5-day SMA;
  • Recent high =  19.90 on April 22; low =  15.38 on April 14
  • Sentiment: Risk-Off

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

Previous Session

Major U.S. indices closed mostly higher on Thursday, April 29 in higher volume. Russell 2000 closed lower. Indices opened higher but then gave all the gains and went into negative territory by late morning before turning around and closing higher.

From Briefing.com:

The S&P 500 advanced 0.7% on Thursday, setting intraday and closing record highs in a bumpy session. The benchmark index started with a 0.9% gain amid a host of positive-sounding developments, then turned negative on no specific catalysts, and finally staged a comeback in the second half of the session. The comeback effort was uneven, though, as the Nasdaq Composite (+0.2%) closed well off opening (record) highs, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.7%) closed near session highs, and the Russell 2000 (-0.4%) closed lower. […] The communication services sector (+2.8%) was easily the top-ranking sector today due to Facebook’s 7% gain. The financials sector (+1.8%) followed suit and was the key difference maker in the index performances since the S&P 500 and Dow are more exposed to large-cap financial stocks than the Nasdaq. Conversely, the health care (-0.4%) and information technology (-0.03%) sectors were the lone sector holdouts, with the former pressured by disappointing Q1 results from Merck (MRK 73.68, -3.41, -4.4%). [,…] U.S. Treasuries settled mixed and little changed, with buying interest pulling yields off early highs as the session progressed. The 2-yr yield decreased one basis point to 0.16%, and the 10-yr yield increased two basis points to 1.64%. The U.S. Dollar Index was little changed at 90.61. WTI crude futures ($65.04, +1.18, +1.9%) settled above $65 per barrel. […] The advance Q1 GDP report showed economic output increasing at a 6.4% annualized rate (Briefing.com consensus 6.5%), paced by a 10.7% increase in personal consumption expenditures and a 6.3% increase in government spending. Real final sales of domestic product, which exclude the change in private inventories, surged 9.2%. The GDP Price Deflator was up 4.1% (Briefing.com consensus 2.6%). […] Initial jobless claims for the week ending April 24 decreased by 13,000 to 553,000 (Briefing.com consensus 530,000). Continuing claims for the week ending April 17 increased by 9,000 to 3.660 million. […] Pending home sales increased 1.9% in March (Briefing.com consensus +7.2%) following a revised 11.5% decline in February (from -10.6%). […] Russell 2000 +16.2% YTD S&P 500 +12.1% YTD Dow Jones Industrial Average +11.3% YTD Nasdaq Composite +9.3% YTD Overseas:  Europe: DAX -0.9%, FTSE flat, CAC -0.1% Asia: Nikkei closed for holiday, Hang Seng +1.0%, Shanghai +0.5% Commodities:  Crude Oil +1.26 @ 65.05 Nat Gas -0.05 @ 2.91 Gold -5.10 @ 1768.20 Silver +0.03 @ 26.05 Copper unch @ 4.48