Directional Bias For The Day:

• S&P Futures are higher;
• The odds are for a sideways to an up day — watch for a break below 4368.00 and a break above 4383.00 for clarity
• Key economic data report due during the day:
  • Flash Manufacturing PMI ( 62.0 est.; prev. 62.1 ) at 9:45 AM
  • Flash Services PMI  ( 64.6 est.; prev. 64.6 ) at 9:45 AM

Directional Bias Before Open:

Key Levels:

• Critical support levels for S&P 500 are 4364.17, 4350.06, and 4342.12
• Critical resistance levels for S&P 500 are 4382.28, 4393.68, and 4400.00
• Key levels for E-mini futures: break above 4383.00, the high of 5:45 AM and break below 4368.00, the low of 12:00 AM

Pre-Open

• On Thursday at 4:00 PM, S&P futures (September 2021) closed at 4359.75 and the index closed at 4367.48 – a spread of about -7.75 points; futures closed at 4359.50 for the day; the fair value is +0.25
• Pre-NYSE session open, futures are higher – at 8:15 AM, S&P 500 futures were up by +19.75; Dow by +184, and NASDAQ by +49.50

Markets Around The World

• Markets in the East closed mostly higher – Shanghai and Hong Kong closed lower; Tokyo was closed for trading
• European markets are higher
• Currencies (from two weeks ago):
  

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

• Commodities (from two weeks ago):
  • Energy futures are mixed
  • Precious metals are mixed
  • Industrial metals are mostly higher
  • Most soft commodities are higher
• Treasuries (from two weeks ago)
  • 10-years yield closed at 1.265%, down -2.3 basis points from two weeks ago;
  • 30-years is at 1.902%, down -0.8 basis points;
  • 2-years yield is at 0.211%, up +1.5 basis points;
  • The 10-Year-&-2-Year spread is at 1.054, down from 1.092
• VIX
  • At 17.08 @ 7:15 AM; down from the last close; below 5-day SMA;
  • Recent high =  25.09 on July 19; low =  15.94 on July 13
  • Sentiment: Risk-On

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

Previous Session

Major U.S. indices closed mixed on Thursday, July 22 in mostly lower volume. Russell 2000, Dow Jones Transportations Average, and NYSE Composite closed lower. Russell 2000 traded in higher volume. The day’s range was small but the overall bias was up.

From Briefing.com:

The large-cap indices closed slightly higher on Thursday, holding onto their recent rebound gains largely due to strength in the mega-cap stocks. The S&P 500 (+0.2%), Nasdaq Composite (+0.4%), and Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.1%) increased between 0.1-0.4% while the Russell 2000 pulled back 1.6%. […] Declining issues outpaced advancing issues by a 2:1 margin at the NYSE and Nasdaq, with energy and financial stocks being among the biggest losers after being the biggest winners yesterday. The S&P 500 financials (-1.0%) and energy (-1.1%) sectors each declined about 1%. Energy stocks struggled despite higher oil prices ($71.92/bbl, +1.64, +2.3%). […] In the Treasury market, the 10-yr yield flirted with 1.32%, then slipped to 1.23% in the hours following the weekly initial claims report, and finally settled two basis points below yesterday’s settlement at 1.27%. The 2-yr yield was unchanged at 0.21%. The U.S. Dollar Index increased 0.1% to 92.85. […] Initial claims for the week ending July 17 increased by 51,000 to 419,000 (Briefing.com consensus 360,000). Continuing claims for the week ending July 10 decreased by 29,000 to 3.236 million, which is the lowest level since March 21, 2020. […] Existing home sales increased 1.4% m/m in June to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.86 million (Briefing.com consensus 5.90 million) from a downwardly revised 5.78 million (from 5.80 million) in May. Total sales in June were up 22.9% from a year ago. […] The Conference Board’s Leading Economic Index (LEI) increased 0.7% in June (Briefing.com consensus 0.9%) after increasing a downwardly revised 1.2% (from 1.3%) in May. […] S&P 500 +16.3% YTD Nasdaq Composite +13.9% YTD Dow Jones Industrial Average +13.8% YTD Russell 2000 +11.4% YTD Overseas:  Europe: DAX +0.6%, FTSE -0.4%, CAC +0.3% Asia: Nikkei CLOSED, Hang Seng +1.8%, Shanghai +0.3% Commodities:  Crude Oil +1.71 @ 71.99 Nat Gas +0.05 @ 4.00 Gold +3.60 @ 1807.10 Silver +0.16 @ 25.43 Copper +0.05 @ 4.33