Directional Bias For The Day:

• S&P Futures are little changed
• The odds are for a sideways day with elevated volatility – watch for a break above 4169 and a below 4156.75 for clarity
• Key economic data report due during the day:
  • Unemployment Claims ( 498K vs. 540K est.; prev. 553K) at 8:30 AM
  • Prelim Nonfarm Productivity ( 5.4% vs. 4.3% est.; prev. -4.2%) at 8:30 AM
  • Prelim Unit Costs ( -0.3% vs. -1.1% est.; prev. -6.0% ) at 8:30 AM

Directional Bias Before Open:

Key Levels:

• Critical support levels for S&P 500 are 4160.94, 4146.39, and 4128.59
• Critical resistance levels for S&P 500 are 4172.51, 4183.51, and 4188.03
• Key levels for E-mini futures: break above 4169.00, the high of 6:30 AM and break below 4156.5, the low of 5:30 AM

Pre-Open

• On Wednesday at 4:00 PM, S&P futures (June 2021) closed at 4161.00 and the index closed at 4167.59 – a spread of about -6.50 points; futures closed at 4160.00 for the day; the fair value is +1.00
• Pre-NYSE session open, futures are little changed- at 8:15 AM, S&P 500 futures were up by +1.00; Dow by +29, and NASDAQ by +6.00

Markets Around The World

• Markets in the East closed mostly higher – Shanghai and Sydney were down
• European markets are mostly lower – the UK and Italy are up
• Currencies (from two weeks ago):
  

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

• Commodities (from two weeks ago):
  • Energy futures are higher
  • Precious metals are lower
  • Industrial metals are higher
  • Most soft commodities are mostly higher
• Treasuries (from two weeks ago)
  • 10-years yield closed at 1.584%, up +2.0 basis points from two weeks ago;
  • 30-years is at 2.259%, down -0.5 basis points;
  • 2-years yield is at 0.165%, up +1.2 basis points;
  • The 10-Year-&-2-Year spread is at 1.419, up from 1.411
• VIX
  • At 18.74 @ 6:45 AM; down from the last close; at/below 5-day SMA;
  • Recent high =  19.90 on April 22; low =  16.67 on April 28
  • Sentiment: Risk-On-Neutral

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

Previous Session

Major U.S. indices closed mixed on Wednesday, May 5 in lower volume.  NASDAQ Composite, Russell 2000, and Wilshire 5000 Total Market index closed lower.

From Briefing.com:

The S&P 500 increased 0.1% on Wednesday in a mixed session that favored the value and cyclical stocks. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.3%) outperformed for the third straight day and set fresh record highs, while the Nasdaq Composite decreased 0.4% after starting with a 0.9% gain. The Russell 2000 lost 0.3%. The energy (+3.3%), materials (+1.3%), and financials (+0.9%) sectors represented the cyclical leadership, partially due to rotational factors since oil prices ($65.63/bbl, -0.07, -0.1%) and Treasury yields were muted today. […] Conversely, the information technology (-0.2%), consumer discretionary (-0.4%), and communication services (-0.3%) sectors exerted the influential weakness after a half-hearted rebound bid to start the day. The lightly-weighted utilities (-1.7%) and real estate (-1.5%) sectors were the weakest performers. […] In the Treasury market, the 2-yr yield decreased one basis point to 0.15%, and the 10-yr yield decreased one basis point to 1.58%. The U.S. Dollar Index was little changed at 91.27. […] The ISM Non-Manufacturing Index decreased to 62.7% in April (Briefing.com consensus 65.0%) from 63.7% in March. The dividing line between expansion and contraction is 50.0%. The April reading marks the eleventh straight month of growth for the services sector and follows a record high reading for March. […] The ADP Employment Change report estimated that 742,000 jobs were added to private-sector payrolls in April (Briefing.com consensus 810,000) following an upwardly revised 565,000 increase (from 517,000) in March. This was the largest increase since September 2020. The IHS Markit Services PMI for April was revised higher to 64.7% from 63.7% in the preliminary reading. The weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index decreased 0.9% following a 2.5% decline in the prior week. […] Russell 2000 +13.5% YTD Dow Jones Industrial Average +11.8% YTD S&P 500 +11.0% YTD Nasdaq Composite +5.4% YTD Overseas:  Europe: DAX +2.1%, FTSE +1.7%, CAC +1.4% Asia: Nikkei closed for holiday, Hang Seng -0.5%, Shanghai closed for holiday Commodities:  Crude Oil -0.15 @ 65.57 Nat Gas -0.03 @ 2.94 Gold +8.30 @ 1785.00 Silver unch @ 26.55 Copper -0.01 @ 4.52