Directional Bias For The Day:

• S&P Futures are lower; moving higher since 4:45 AM from a low of 2745.25; almost near Friday’s close
• Odds are for a sideways to an up day with increased volatility
• Key economic data due:
  • Core Retail Sales ( -0.1% vs. 0.4% est.) at 8:30 AM
  • Retail Sales (0.1% vs. 0.7% est.) at 8:30 AM
  • Empire State Manufacturing Index (21.1 vs. 20.4 est.) at 8:30 AM
  • Treasury Currency Report anytime today

Markets Around The World

• Markets in the East closed mostly lower – Mumbai was up
• European markets are mostly up – France and Switzerland are down
• Currencies:
  

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

• Commodities:
  

  Up	Down
  Crude Oil NatGas Gold Silver Copper Platinum Palladium Sugar Coffee Cotton	Cocoa

• Bonds
  • 10-yrs yield is at 3.163%, up from October 12 close of 3.141%;
  • 30-years is at 3.343%, up from 3.316%
  • 2-years yield is at 2.857%, unchanged
  • The 10-Year-&-2-Year spread is at 0.306, up from 0.288

Key Levels:

• Critical support levels for S&P 500 are 2745.15, 2732.66 and 2710.51
• Critical resistance levels for S&P 500 are 2775.77, 2784.11 and 2795.14
• Key levels for eMini futures: break above 2769.25, the high of 8:00 PM on October 14 and break below 2753.75, the low of 6:30 AM

Pre-Open

• On Friday, at 4:00 PM, S&P future (December contract) closed at 2768.75 and the index closed at 2767.13 – a spread of about +1.75 points; futures closed at 2768.50 for the day; the fair value is +0.25
• Pre-NYSE session open, futures price action is to the downside – at 8:15 AM, S&P 500 futures were down -1.50; Dow by -21.00; and NASDAQ by -9.00

Directional Bias Before Open

• Weekly: Uptrend Under Pressure
• Daily: Uptrend Under Pressure
• 120-Min: Down
• 30-Min: Side
• 15-Min: Side
• 6-Min: Side-Up

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

Monthly	Confirmed Uptrend December 2017 closed higher; index has been higher for the nine straight months; it has only one down month, March 2017, since October 2016 Uptrend resumption since Feb 08, 2016 after a pull back of -15.2%
Weekly:	The week ending on October 12 was a large red candle, following a bearish engulfing candle, which breached many weeks’ low; the lower shadow was twice the size of upper shadow and two-third the size of the real body Stochastics (9,1, 3) and RSI (14) continue to decline following their bearish divergences Last week’s pivot point=2790.82, R1=2871.14 R2=2975.14; S1=2686.82, S2=2606.50; S1/S2/S3 pivot levels were breached; Third down week in a row; third in last five weeks and fifth in last ten weeks Broke above an ascending triangle but retraced back to its upper limit; 100% extension target is near 3070.00 level Broke above a down sloping flag on April 24 2017; flag-low was 2322.25 during 27-Mar-17 week; shorter flag-pole length is 317.19 and longer flag-pole length is 590.88; 100% extension target of shorter flag-pole near 2639.44 and the 161.8% extension target near 2835.46 are achieved; the 261.8% extension target is near 3013.72 61.8% extension target of longer flag-pole near 2687.41 is achieved; the 100% extension target is near 2913.13 Broke above a down-sloping flag on November 14, 2016; the flag low was 2083.79 during 31-Oct-16 week; the shorter flag-pole length is 202.13 and the longer flag-pole length is 383.71; 261.8% extension target of shorter flag-pole near 2612.97 is achieved the 161.8% extension target of longer flag-pole near 2704.63 is achieved; the 261.8% extension target is near 3088.34 Last swing low, 2322.25, was the low on March 27, 2017; Last swing high, 2872.87, was during the week of January 22, 2-018; the low since the last swing high is 2532.69 during the week if February 5, 2018 At 10-week EMA; above 39-week SMA and above 89-week SMA Uptrend Under Pressure
Daily	Small red real body with large lower shadow and small upper shadow – looks like a dragonfly doji – within the real body of previous day or a harami candlestick formation %K crossed above %D from oversold levels at at 0.52, the lowest since February 8 Below 20-day EMA, 50-day EMA and 100-day SMA; at/below 200-day SMA Uptrend Under Pressure
2-Hour (e-mini future)	Forming a symmetrical triangle at the low end of sharp decline of past few days; a break below its will make it a pennant formation and a break above it will start a bounce RSI-9 continue to rise form a low of 8.07 at 10:00 PM on October 10; bullish divergence at 2:00 PM on October 11 Below 20-bar EMA, which is below EMA10 of EMA50 Bias: Down
30-Minute (e-mini future)	Mostly moving sideways since 6:30 PM on October 11 between 2784.50 and 2732.25 RSI-9 mostly between 40 and 65 since 2:30 AM on October 11 with few forays below At/above 50-bar EMA, which is above 20-bar EMA – both almost flat Bias: Side
15-Minute (e-mini future)	Bollinger Band (20, 2.0) is mostly moving sideways since 0:15 AM on October 11 with alternatively showing slight up or down biases for few hours The band narrowed from 10:45 PM on Sunday to 4:30 AM; expanding since RSI-9 rising from 31.61 at :45 AM; above 65 The Stochastic (9, 1, 3): %K is crossed above %D from below 10 at 4:45 AM; crisscrossing %D above 90 since 5:30 AM Bias: Side

Previous Session

Major U.S. indices closed higher on Friday October 12 in lower volume. the traded volume was lower than that on Thursday but still higher than previous week’s average.

From Briefing.com:

Stocks sold off sharply this week, sending the S&P 500 lower by 4.1%. Fears over potentially weakening economic and earnings growth helped fuel the selling, which left stocks at three-month lows going into the third quarter earnings season. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 4.2% this week, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite fell 3.7%.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) cut its 2018 and 2019 global growth outlook to 3.7% from 3.9% on Tuesday, citing trade uncertainties that include tariffs between the U.S. and China, a pending Brexit deal, and the new trilateral agreement between the U.S., Canada, and Mexico that’s supposed to replace NAFTA.

[…] The yield on the benchmark 10-yr Treasury note, which spiked to a seven-year high last week, hovered between 3.12% and 3.26% before eventually settling Friday at 3.14% — nine basis points below last Friday’s close. Meanwhile, the yield on the more Fed-sensitive 2-yr Treasury note fell four basis points to 2.84%, leaving the 2-10 spread with a five bps point loss for the week.

[…] The CME FedWatch Tool places the chances of a December rate hike at 79.7%; that’s down slightly from 80.0% last Friday.

The S&P 500 got into technical trouble this week, breaching its 50-day moving average on Wednesday and then its 200-day moving average on Thursday. The benchmark index tried to reclaim its 200-day moving average on Friday, but closed right at the key technical mark. The Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Nasdaq Composite breached their 200-day moving averages as well; the Dow eventually reclaimed the key technical level, but the Nasdaq did not.

• S&P 500 Sectors

Sector	Daily Trend	Relative Strength (Last Month)	Relative Strength (Current)
Consumer Discretionary	Down (Break below trading zone – 114.80)	XLY	SPY
Consumer Staples	Side (Break Down Support = 53.49)	SPY	XLP
Energy	Up (From Side)	SPY	XLE
Materials	Side	SPY	SPY
Industrials	Up-Side	XLI	XLI
Finance	Side	SPY	XLF
Technology	Up (Under Pressure)	XLK	SPY
Utility	Up-Side	SPY	XLU
Heath Care	Up (under Pressure)	XLV	XLV
Real Estate	Down	SPY	SPY
Telecom	Side	XTL	SPY