Directional Bias For The Day:

• S&P Futures are lower at 9:00 AM; moving sideways to down within a narrow range; near the lows of a channel between 3964.50 and 3946.00;
• The odds are for a down day with elevated volatility – watch for a break above 3964.50 for a change of sentiments
• The key economic data report due during the day:
  • CB Consumer Confidence ( 97.3 est.; prev. 98.7) at 10:00 AM
  • Richmond Manufacturing PMI ( -13 est.; prev. -11) at 10:00 AM
  • New Home Sales (663K est.; prev. 696K) at 10:00 AM

Directional Bias Before Open:

Key Levels:

• Critical support levels for S&P 500 are 3939.51, 3927.64, and 3922.03
• Critical resistance levels for S&P 500 are 3962.68, 3979.92, and 4002.86
• Key levels for E-mini futures: break above 3964.50, the high at 5:00 AM and a break below 3946.00, the low at 3:00 PM on Monday

Pre-Open

• On Friday at 4:00 PM, S&P futures (September 2022) closed at 3965.50,  and the index closed at 3961.63 – a spread of about +3.75 points; the futures closed at 3965.00; the fair value is +0.50
• Pre-NYSE session open, futures are higher – at 9:00 AM, S&P 500 futures were up by +10.00, Dow by +119; and NASDAQ by +20.50

Markets Around The World

• Markets in the East closed mostly lower – Seoul closed up
• European markets are higher
• Currencies (Compared to two weeks ago):
  

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

• Commodities (Compared to two weeks ago):
  • Energy futures are mixed
  • Precious metals are lower
  • Industrial metals are lower
  • Soft commodities are mostly lower
• Treasuries (Compared to two weeks ago)
  • The 10-year yield closed at 2.838%, down -26.3 basis points from two weeks ago;
  • The 30-year is at 3.067%, down -20.2 basis points;
  • The 2-year yield is at 2.995%, down -12.0 basis points;
  • The 10-Year-&-2-Year spread is at -0.157, up from -0.014
  • The 30-Year-&-10-Year spread is at 0.229, up from 0.168
• VIX
  • At 23.99 @ 9:00 AM; up from the last close; above the 5-day SMA;
  • Recent high = 29.06 on July 13; low = 22.41 on July 22
  • Sentiment: Risk-Off

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

Previous Session

Major U.S. indices closed lower on Friday, July 22, in mostly higher volume. Dow Jones Transportation Average traded in higher volume. The major indices opened up, but after moving sideways for the first few hours, they turned down and mostly traded lower for the rest of the day.

For the week, the major indices closed higher in mostly lower volume. The markets in Asia and Europe closed up. The dollar index closed down, the energy futures closed mixed, the metals – precious and industrials – closed up, and most soft commodities closed down. The US Treasury yields closed down. All S&P sectors closed up for the week.

From Briefing.com:

[…] The three main indices saw choppy action, albeit within a narrow range, in the first half of the session until finding downside momentum and declining through most of the afternoon. […] At the close, advancers led decliners by a 3-to-2 margin at the NYSE while advancers were roughly in line with decliners at the Nasdaq. […] The energy complex futures made noticeable upside moves today. WTI crude oil futures rose 2.2% to settle at $96.80/bbl. Natural gas futures rose 5.2% to $8.63/mmbtu. Unleaded gasoline futures rose 3.1% to $3.11/gal. Treasury yields were on the rise today. The 2-yr note yield rose five basis points to 3.04% while the 10-yr note yield rose four basis points to 2.82%. […] Dow Jones Industrial Average: -11.9% YTD S&P 400: -15.1% YTD S&P 500: -16.8% YTD Russell 2000: -19.0% YTD Nasdaq Composite: -24.7% YTD Overseas:  Europe: DAX -0.3%, FTSE +0.4%, CAC +0.3% Asia: Nikkei -0.8%, Hang Seng -0.2%, Shanghai -0.6% Commodities:  Crude Oil +2.04 @ 96.80 Nat Gas +0.43 @ 8.62 Gold -1.00 @ 1718.30 Silver -0.09 @ 18.36 Copper +0.04 @ 3.35