Directional Bias For The Day:

• S&P Futures are lower at 8:30 AM but rising since 6:45 AM
• The odds are for a sideways day – watch for a break above 4472.50 and a break below 4448.25 for clarity
• Key economic data report due during the day:
  • Prelim UoM Consumer Sentiment ( 71.9 est.; prev. 70.3) at 10:00 AM
  • Prelim UoM Inflations Expectations ( prev. 4.6% ) at 10:00 AM

Directional Bias Before Open:

Key Levels:

• Critical support levels for S&P 500 are 4468.02, 4457.58, and 4443.80
• Critical resistance levels for S&P 500 are 4480.59, 4486.87, and 4492.99
• Key levels for E-mini futures: break above 4472.50, the high of 3:00 AM and break below 4448.25, the high of 6:30 AM

Pre-Open

• On Thursday at 4:00 PM, S&P futures (December 2021) closed at 4464.50 and the index closed at 4473.75 – a spread of about -9.25 points; futures closed at 4464.25 for the day; the fair value is +0.25
• Pre-NYSE session open, futures are lower – at 8:15 AM, S&P 500 futures were down -4.75; Dow by -7; and NASDAQ by -9.50

Markets Around The World

• Markets in the East closed mostly higher – Sydney and Mumbai closed lower
• European markets are mostly higher – Germany and Italy are lower
• Currencies (from two weeks ago):
  

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

• Commodities (from two weeks ago):
  • Energy futures are higher
  • Precious metals are lower
  • Industrial metals are lower
  • Most soft commodities are mixed
• Treasuries (from two weeks ago)
  • 10-years yield closed at 1.331%, up +3.7 basis points from two weeks ago;
  • 30-years is at 1.881%, down -2.6 basis points;
  • 2-years yield is at 0.221%, up +1.0 basis points;
  • The 10-Year-&-2-Year spread is at 1.110, up from 1.083
• VIX
  • At 19.22 @ 7:45 AM; up from the last close; above 5-day SMA;
  • Recent high =  24.74 on August 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 mostly lower on Thursday, September 16 in mixed volume. NASDAQ Composite and Dow Jones Transportation Average traded higher in higher volume. Indices opened lower and traded down in the early morning trading before turning around then mostly traded higher in the afternoon.

From Briefing.com:

The Nasdaq Composite (+0.1%) eked out a gain, while the S&P 500 (-0.2%), Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.2%), and Russell 2000 (-0.1%) closed slightly lower. […] The 2-yr yield increased one basis point to 0.22%, and the 10-yr yield increased three basis points to 1.33%. The U.S. Dollar Index increased 0.3% to 92.86. WTI crude futures ($72.62, +0.10, +0.1%) were little changed. […] Total retail sales increased 0.7% month-over-month (Briefing.com consensus -0.7%) following a downwardly revised 1.8% decline (from -1.1%) in July. Excluding autos, retail sales jumped 1.8% (Briefing.com consensus -0.2%) after declining a downwardly revised 1.0% (from -0.4%) in July. […] Initial claims for the week ending September 11 increased by 20,000 to 332,000 (Briefing.com consensus 318,000). Continuing claims for the week ending September 4 decreased by 187,000 to 2.665 million. […] The Philadelphia Fed Index for September increased to 30.7 (Briefing.com consensus 19.6) from 19.4 in August. Business inventories increased 0.5% m/m in July (Briefing.com consensus 0.5%) following an upwardly revised 0.9% increase (from 0.8%) in June. […] S&P 500 +19.1% YTD Nasdaq Composite +17.8% YTD Dow Jones Industrial Average +13.5% YTD Russell 2000 +13.1% YTD Overseas:  Europe: DAX +0.2%, FTSE +0.2%, CAC +0.6% Asia: Nikkei -0.6%, Hang Seng -1.5%, Shanghai -1.3% Commodities:  Crude Oil -0.10 @ 72.63 Nat Gas -0.16 @ 5.30 Gold -39.10 @ 1755.90 Silver -0.96 @ 22.85 Copper -0.15 @ 4.26