Directional Bias For The Day:

• S&P Futures are lower
• The odds are for a down with elevated volatility; good chance of sideways to up move from pre-open levels around 4355.00 — watch for a break above 4373.25
• Key economic data report due during the day:
  • Unemployment Claims  348K vs. 362K est.; prev. 377K) at 8:30 AM
  • Philly Fed Manufacturing Index (19.4 vs. 23.2 est.; prev. 21.9) at 8:30 AM

Directional Bias Before Open:

Key Levels:

• Critical support levels for S&P 500 are 4350.06, 4323.30, and 4312.15
• Critical resistance levels for S&P 500 are 4373.00, 4397.59, and 4423.93
• Key levels for E-mini futures: break above 4373.25, the high of 6:00 AM and break below 4347.75, the low of 5:00 AM

Pre-Open

• On Wednesday at 4:00 PM, S&P futures (September 2021) closed at 4395.50 and the index closed at 4400.27 – a spread of about -4.75 points; futures closed at 4394.50 for the day; the fair value is +1.00
• Pre-NYSE session open, futures are lower – at 8:30 AM, S&P 500 futures were down by -32.50; Dow by -304; and NASDAQ by -84.75

Markets Around The World

• Markets in the East closed higher – Mumbai was closed for trading;
• European markets are lower;
• Currencies (from two weeks ago):
  

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

• Commodities (from two weeks ago):
  • Energy futures are lower
  • Precious metals are lower
  • Industrial metals are lower
  • Most soft commodities are mostly higher
• Treasuries (from two weeks ago)
  • 10-years yield closed at 1.237%, up +5.3 basis points from two weeks ago;
  • 30-years is at 1.870%, up +3.0 basis points;
  • 2-years yield is at 0.209%, up +2.9 basis points;
  • The 10-Year-&-2-Year spread is at 1.028, up from 1.004
• VIX
  • At 24.33 @ 8:00 AM; up from the last close; above 5-day SMA;
  • Recent high =  25.09 on July 19; low =  15.19 on August 13
  • Sentiment: Risk-Off

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

Previous Session

Major U.S. indices closed lower on Wednesday, August 18 in lower volume. Major Index opened up but the move up stalled in the early morning. The indices then drifted lower till mid-afternoon when the sudden;y broke down and closed near the lows for the day. All but one S&P sector – Consumer Discretionary – closed lower.

From Briefing.com:

The S&P 500 fell 1.1% on Wednesday amid a flush of selling interest into the close on no specific news. […] The Nasdaq Composite (-0.9%), Dow Jones Industrial Average (-1.1%), and Russell 2000 (-0.8%) declined between 0.8-1.1%. Eight of the 11 S&P 500 sectors declined at least 1.0%, including energy (-2.4%), which fell more than 2.0%. The consumer discretionary sector (+0.2%) was the lone holdout amid some relief in retail stocks and Tesla (TSLA 688.99, +23.28, +3.5%). […] The Treasury market was well behaved throughout the session. The 10-yr yield increased two basis points to 1.27%, and the 2-yr yield was unchanged at 0.21%. The U.S. Dollar Index was little changed at 93.15. WTI crude futures fell 1.7%, or $1.16, to $65.44/bbl, which reflecting lingering growth concerns. […] Total housing starts declined 7.0% month-over-month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.534 million units (Briefing.com consensus 1.610 million) while building permits increased 2.6% month-over-month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.635 million (Briefing.com consensus 1.610 million). […] The weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index decreased 3.9% following a 2.8% increase in the prior week. Weekly crude oil inventories decreased by 3.23 mln barrels after decreasing by 447,000 barrels during the previous week. […] S&P 500 +17.2% YTD Dow Jones Industrial Average +14.2% YTD Nasdaq Composite +12.7% YTD Russell 2000 +9.3% YTD Overseas:  Europe: DAX +0.3%, FTSE -0.2%,CAC -0.7% Asia: Nikkei +0.6%, Hang Seng +0.5%, Shanghai +1.1% Commodities:  Crude Oil -1.61 @ 65.00 Nat Gas +0.03 @ 3.85 Gold +1.60 @ 1787.90 Silver -0.13 @ 23.49 Copper -0.09 @ 4.12