Directional Bias For The Day:

• S&P Futures are lower
• The odds are for a down day with elevated volatility – watch for a break above 4167.75 for a change of sentiments
• No key economic data report due during the day:

Directional Bias Before Open:

Key Levels:

• Critical support levels for S&P 500 are 4074.99, 4056.88, and 4034.44
• Critical resistance levels for S&P 500 are 4087.20, 4111.53, and 4125.99
• Key levels for E-mini futures: break above 4101.00, the high of 5:00 AM and break below 4029.25, the low of 4:00 AM on May 13

Pre-Open

• On Tuesday at 4:00 PM, S&P futures (June 2021) closed at 4123.00 and the index closed at 4127.83 – a spread of about -4.75 points; futures closed at 4123.00 for the day; the fair value is +0.0
• Pre-NYSE session open, futures are lower – at 8:30 AM, S&P 500 futures were down by -42.25; Dow by -295, and NASDAQ by -195.00

Markets Around The World

• Markets in the East closed lower – Hong Kong and Seoul were closed
• European markets are lower
• Currencies (from two weeks ago):
  

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

• Commodities (from two weeks ago):
  • Energy futures are mixed
  • Precious metals are higher
  • Industrial metals are mostly higher
  • Most soft commodities are mixed
• Treasuries (from two weeks ago)
  • 10-years yield closed at 1.642%, up +5.0 basis points from two weeks ago;
  • 30-years is at 2.364%, up +9.8 basis points;
  • 2-years yield is at 0.157%, down -0.7 basis points;
  • The 10-Year-&-2-Year spread is at 1.485, up from 1.428
• VIX
  • At 23.37 @ 8:00 AM; higher from the last close; above 5-day SMA;
  • Recent high =  28.93 on May 13; low =  16.68 on May 7
  • Sentiment: Risk-Off

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

Previous Session

Major U.S. indices closed lower on Tuesday, May 18 in mixed volume. Dow Jones Industrial Average and Russell 2000 traded in higher volume. Most major indices made Bearish Engulfing and similar bearish candlestick formations. Indices opened lower and then for most of the day traded sideways before accelerating the decline in the last half-hour of the session.

From Briefing.com:

The S&P 500 fell 0.9% on Tuesday, as sellers first reined in the value/cyclical stocks then targeted the technology stocks late in the day. The Nasdaq Composite declined 0.6%, the Dow Jones Industrial Average declined 0.8% and the Russell 2000 declined 0.7%. Both the Nasdaq and Russell 2000 coughed up 0.8% intraday gains. […] Accordingly, the cyclical energy (-2.6%), industrials (-1.5%), financials (-1.4%), and materials (-1.1%) sectors were among the biggest laggards today. Investors leaned defensively toward the health care (+0.1%) and real estate (+0.2%) sectors, which were the only sectors that closed higher. […] U.S. Treasuries settled little changed in a relatively tight-ranged session. The 2-yr yield was flat 0.15%, and the 10-yr yield was flat at 1.64%. The U.S. Dollar Index decreased 0.4% to 89.78. WTO crude futures decreased 1.1%, or $0.72, to $65.51/bbl. […] Total housing starts declined 9.5% month-over-month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.569 million units (Briefing.com consensus 1.715 million). Total permits rose just 0.3% month-over-month to 1.760 million, as expected. […] Russell 2000 +12.0% YTD Dow Jones Industrial Average +11.3% YTD S&P 500 +9.9% YTD Nasdaq Composite +3.2% YTD Overseas:  Europe: DAX -0.1%, FTSE flat, CAC -0.2% Asia: Nikkei +2.1%, Hang Seng +1.6%, Shanghai +0.3% Commodities:  Crude Oil -0.70 @ 65.50 Nat Gas -0.09 @ 3.02 Gold +0.20 @ 1868.40 Silver +0.05 @ 28.36 Copper +0.03 @ 4.74