Directional Bias For The Day:

• S&P Futures are lower at 7:45 AM; moving sideways to down since 12:30 AM
• The odds are for a sideways to a down day – watch for a break above 4519.25 and above 4527.50 for a change of sentiments
• Key economic data report due during the day:
  • Philly Fed Manufacturing Index (25.1 est.; prev. 30.7) at 8:30 AM
  • Unemployment Claims ( 298K est.; prev. 293K) at 8:30 AM
  • CB Leading Index (0.4% est.; prev. 0.9%) at 10:00 AM
  • Existing Home Sales ( 6.10M est.; prev. 5.88M ) at 10:00 AM

Directional Bias Before Open:

Key Levels:

• Critical support levels for S&P 500 are 4524.40, 4513.38, and 4509.84
• Critical resistance levels for S&P 500 are 4536.61, 4541.45, and 4545.85
• Key levels for E-mini futures: break above 4527.75, the high of 10:30 PM  and break below 4510.25, the low of 3:00 AM

Pre-Open

• On Wednesday at 4:00 PM, S&P futures (December 2021) closed at 4529.25 and the index closed at 4536.19 – a spread of about -7.00 points; futures closed at 4528.00 for the day; the fair value is +1.25
• Pre-NYSE session open, futures are lower – at 6:45 AM, S&P 500 futures were down by -10.50; Dow by -103; and NASDAQ by -22.50

Markets Around The World

• Markets in the East closed mostly lower – Shanghai and Sydney closed higher
• European markets lower
• Currencies (Compared to two weeks ago):
  

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

• Commodities (Compared to two weeks ago):
  • Energy futures are mixed
  • Precious metals are higher
  • Industrial metals higher
  • Soft commodities are mostly higher
• Treasuries (Compared to two weeks ago)
  • 10-years yield closed at 1.636%, up +11.2 basis points from two weeks ago;
  • 30-years is at 2.111%, up +3.5 basis points;
  • 2-years yield is at 0.392%, up +9.1 basis points;
  • The 10-Year-&-2-Year spread is at 1.244, up from 1.223
  • The 30-Year-&-10-Year spread is at 0.474, down from 0.552
• VIX
  • At 15.98 @ 6:15 AM; up from the last close; below 5-day SMA;
  • Recent high = 24.89 on October 1; low =  15.29 on October 20
  • Sentiment: Risk-Off

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

Previous Session

Major U.S. indices closed mostly higher on Wednesday, October 20, in mostly lower volume. NASDAQ Composite closed down and Dow Jones Industrial Average traded in lower volume. The price action was subdued. Major indices opened higher and then mostly drifted sideways with an up bias. DJIA made an all-time intraday high. NYSE Composite and Wilshire 5000 Total Market Index made all-time intraday and closing highs.

From Briefing.com:

The S&P 500 (+0.4%) and Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.4%) closed just below record highs on Wednesday, with the benchmark index rising for the sixth straight day and the Dow setting an intraday record high. The Nasdaq Composite (-0.1%) declined modestly, while the Russell 2000 rose 0.6%. […] The Russell 1000 Value Index advanced 0.9% with a counter-cyclical bias, which was evident in the leadership positions from the S&P 500 health care (+1.5%), utilities (+1.6%), and real estate (+1.6%) sectors. Conversely, the heavily-weighted information technology (-0.3%), consumer discretionary (-0.2%), and communication services (-0.2%) sectors were the only sectors that closed lower, […] The 2-yr yield decreased one basis point to 0.38%, and the 10-yr yield was unchanged at 1.64%. The U.S. Dollar Index decreased 0.1% to 93.60. WTI crude futures rose 1.5%, or $1.24, to $84.25/bbl amid an unexpected draw in weekly crude inventories (431,000). […] The weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index fell 6.3% following a 0.2% increase in the prior week. Weekly crude oil inventories decreased by 431,000 barrels after increasing by 6.09 mln barrels during the previous week. […] S&P 500 +20.8% YTD Nasdaq Composite +17.3% YTD Dow Jones Industrial Average +16.4% YTD Russell 2000 +16.0% YTD Overseas:  Europe: DAX +0.1%, FTSE +0.1%, CAC +0.5% Asia: Nikkei +0.1%, Hang Seng +1.4%, Shanghai -0.2% Commodities:  Crude Oil +1.09 @ 83.36 Nat Gas +0.09 @ 5.18 Gold +17.00 @ 1787.00 Silver +0.65 @ 24.45 Copper +0.04 @ 4.74