Directional Bias For The Day:

• S&P Futures are lower at 8:30 AM;
• The odds are for a down day with  a good chance of sideways  to an up move from pre-open levels around 4570.00 – watch for a break above 4574.00 and a break below 4559.25 for clarity
• Key economic data report due during the day:
  • Core PCE ( 0.2% vs. 0.2% est.; prev. 0.3%) at 8:30 AM
  • Employment Cost Index ( 1.3% vs. 0.9% est.; prev. 0.7%) at 8:30 AM
  • Personal Income ( -1.0% vs. -0.2% est.; prev. -0.2%) at 8:30 AM
  • Personal Spending ( 0.6% vs.. 0.6% est.; prev. 0.8%) at 8:30 AM
  • Chicago PMI ( 63.6 est.; prev. 64.7) at 10:00 AM
  • Revised UoM Consumer Sentiment ( 71.4 est.; prev. 71.4) at 10:00 AM
  • Revised UoM Inflation Expectations (prev. 4.8%) at 10:00 AM

Directional Bias Before Open:

Key Levels:

• Critical support levels for S&P 500 are 4578.55, 4562.84, and 4551.95
• Critical resistance levels for S&P 500 are 4584.74, 4597.55, and 4608.37
• Key levels for E-mini futures: break above 4574.00, the high of 9:30 PM and break below 4559.25, the low of 6:15 AM

Pre-Open

• On Thursday at 4:00 PM, S&P futures (December 2021) closed at 4587.75 and the index closed at 4596.42 – a spread of about -8.75 points; futures closed at 4587.50 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 by -19.25; Dow by -32; and NASDAQ by -122.75

Markets Around The World

• Markets in the East closed mostly lower – Shanghai and Tokoyo closed higher
• European markets are mostly lower – Spain is up
• Currencies (Compared to two weeks ago):
  

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

• Commodities (Compared to two weeks ago):
  • Energy futures are higher
  • Precious metals are higher
  • Industrial metals are lower
  • Soft commodities are mostly higher
• Treasuries (Compared to two weeks ago)
  • 10-years yield closed at 1.568%, up +4.9 basis points from two weeks ago;
  • 30-years is at 1.963%, down -6.2 basis points;
  • 2-years yield is at 0.485%, up +12.3 basis points;
  • The 10-Year-&-2-Year spread is at 1.083, down from 1.157
  • The 30-Year-&-10-Year spread is at 0.395, down from 0.506
• VIX
  • At 17.85 @ 8:45 AM; up from the last close; above 5-day SMA;
  • Recent high = 24.89 on October 1; low =  14.84 on October 22
  • Sentiment: Risk-Off

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

Previous Session

Major U.S. indices closed higher on Thursday, October 28, in lower volume. The major indices opened up and then drifted higher for the rest of the day. NASDAQ Composite made all-time closing and intraday highs. S&P 500 and Wilshire 5000 Total Market Index made all-time closing highs.

From Briefing.com:

The S&P 500 (+1.0%) and Nasdaq Composite (+1.4%) rallied to record closes on Thursday, bolstered by better-than-expected earnings reports, mega-cap strength, and infrastructure optimism. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.7% while the Russell 2000 rose 2.0%. The Nasdaq also set an intraday record high. […] All 11 S&P 500 sectors closed higher with gains ranging from 0.3% (communication services) to 1.5% (real estate). […] The 2-yr yield increased two basis points to 0.50% after peaking at 1.56% overnight, and the 10-yr yield increased four basis points to 1.57%. The U.S. Dollar Index fell 0.5% to 93.37. WTI crude futures ($82.79/bbl, +0.11, +0.1%) settled little changed. […] The Advance Q3 GDP report indicated real GDP increased at an annual rate of 2.0% (Briefing.com consensus 2.4%), down noticeably from the 6.7% growth rate reported for the second quarter, as personal spending growth decelerated to just 1.6% from 12.0% in the second quarter. The GDP Price Deflator was up 5.7% (Briefing.com consensus 5.5%) after increasing 6.1% in the second quarter. […] For the week ending October 23, initial claims declined by 10,000 to 281,000 (Briefing.com consensus 291,000), marking the lowest level for initial claims since March 14, 2020. Continuing claims for the week ending October 16 decreased by 237,000 to 2.243 million, which was also the lowest level since March 14, 2020. […] Pending home sales decreased 2.3% m/m in September (Briefing.com consensus 1.0%) following an unrevised 8.1% increase in August. […] S&P 500 +22.4% YTD Nasdaq Composite +19.9% YTD Dow Jones Industrial Average +16.7% YTD Russell 2000 +16.4% YTD Overseas:  Europe: DAX -0.1%, FTSE -0.1%, CAC +0.8% Asia: Nikkei -1.0%, Hang Seng -0.3%, Shanghai -1.2% Commodities:  Crude Oil +0.50@ 82.68 Nat Gas -0.39 @ 5.83 Gold +2.10 @ 1802.30 Silver -0.09 @ 24.15 Copper +0.03 @ 4.44