Directional Bias For The Day:

• S&P Futures are higher
• Moving mostly sideways to down after gapping up at 6:30 PM on Wednesday
• The odds are for an up day with increased chances of sideways to down move from current level – watch for break above 3185.50 and break below 3162.75
• Key economic data due:
  • Retail Sales ( 0.2% vs. 0.5% est. ; prev. 0.4%) at 8:30 AM
  • Core Retail Sales ( 0.1% vs. 0.4% est. ; prev., 0.3%) at 8:30 AM
  • Import Prices ( 0.2% vs. 0.2% est. ; prev. -0.5% ) at 8:30 AM

Directional Bias Before Open:

Weekly: Uptrend Daily: Confirmed Uptrend 120-Min: Up

30-Min: Up-Side 15-Min: Up-Side 6-Min: Side-Down

Key Levels:

• Critical support levels for S&P 500 are 3164.58, 3154.70 and 3150.30
• Critical resistance levels for S&P 500 are 3183.74, 3198.92 and 3221.55
• Key levels for eMini futures: break above 3185.50, the high of 5:30 AM and break below 3162.50, the low of 7:30 AM

Pre-Open

• On Thursday, at 4:00 PM, S&P future closed at 3168.25 and the index closed at 3168.57 – a spread of about -0.25 points; futures closed at 3168.00 for the day; the fair value is +0.25
• Pre-NYSE session open, futures are higher – at 8:30 AM, S&P 500 futures were up by +12.00; Dow by +87 and NASDAQ by +56.50

Markets Around The World

• Markets in the East closed higher
• European markets are higher
• Currencies:
  

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

• Commodities:
  

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

• Bonds
  • 10-yrs yield closed at 1.897%, up from December 11 close of 1.790%;
  • 30-years is at 2.318%, up from 2.220%
  • 2-years yield is at 1.663%, up from 1.605%
  • The 10-Year-&-2-Year spread is at 0.234 up from 0.185
• VIX
  • Is at 12.72 down from December 12 close of 13.94; below 5-day SMA
  • Recent high was 16.90 on December 10; recent low was 12.25 on December 9

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

Monthly	Uptrend resumed October was a relatively large green candle with almost not lower shadow and small upper shadow Stochastic %K is above %D and above 90 RSI-9 is breaking above a downtrend line from January 2018 high; Rising to the upper band from near the middle band of the 120-month regression channel Sequence of higher highs and higher lows since February 2016 is broken in December since then a new high has been made
Weekly:	The week ending on December 6 was a green candle that looks like a gravestone doji near the all time highs Continuing the break above the upper bound of a broadening pattern Stochastic (9,1, 3): %K crossed above %D; above 90; RSI (9) is above 70 Last week was up +4.93 or +0.2%; the 5-week ATR is 47.40 Last week’s pivot point=3122.28, R1=3174.23, R2=3202.55; S1=3093.96, S2=3042.01; S1/S2/S3 pivot levels were breached Second up week; fourth in last five weeks and eight in last ten weeks Last swing low, 2728.81, was the low on June 3, 2018; last swing high was 3027.98, made during the week of July 22 Above 10-week EMA; above 39-week SMA and 89-week SMA Uptrend
Daily	A large green candle with almost no lower shadow and small upper shadow; all time highs %K is crossing above %D; just above 80 RSI-9 is just above 60 and above 8-day SMA Broke above a symmetrical triangle, that resembles an ascending triangle, on October 25; Upper bound 3027.98 and lower bound 2898.07; max height almost 130; break point is 3016.00; the 100% extension target near 3146.00 is achieved; the 161.8% extension target is near 3226.00 Above 20-day EMA, 50-day EMA, 100-day SMA and 200-day SMA; Uptrend
2-Hour (e-mini future)	Moving higher to sideways after gapping up at the day’s open near all time highs; RSI-21 moving around 70 %K is crisscrossing %D above 90 Above 20-bar EMA, which is above EMA10 of EMA50 Bias: Up
30-Minute (e-mini future)	Drifting sideways after gapping up at 6:00 PM open on Thursday; near all time highs RSI-21 declining after moving around 65 %K is below %D since 5:30 AM At/above 10-bar EMA, which is above EMA10 of EMA50 Bias: Up-Side
15-Minute (e-mini future)	Bollinger Band (20, 2.0) is drifting sideways since 11:00 PM on Wednesday The Bollinger Band is narrow since 11:00 PM Stochastic (9, 1, 3): %K is below %D since 5:15 AM; below 20 Bias: Up-Side

Previous Session

Major U.S. indices closed higher on Thursday, December 12 in higher volume. All but Dow Jones Transportation Average made all time highs. All but Transport and Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at al time high. The day’s range was large.

From Briefing.com:

The S&P 500 (+0.9%) and Nasdaq Composite (+0.7%) closed at record highs on Thursday, as investors reacted positively to news that the U.S. and China are on the verge of signing a Phase One trade deal. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.8%) and Russell 2000 (+0.8%) both rose 0.8%.

[…]

The S&P 500 cyclical sectors led the advance, with the energy sector (+2.0%) finding additional support in higher oil prices ($59.18, +0.44, +0.8%) and the financials sector (+2.0%) benefiting from some curve-steepening activity. Trade-sensitive stocks like Wynn Resorts (WYNN 132.27, +11.44, +9.5%) and those in the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (+2.7%) also outperformed.

The 2-yr yield rose six basis points to 1.67%, and the 10-yr yield rose 11 basis points to 1.90%. The U.S. Dollar Index increased 0.1% to 97.29.

[…]

• The Producer Price Index for final demand (PPI) was unchanged month-over-month in November (Briefing.com consensus 0.2%) while core PPI, which excludes food and energy, surprisingly declined 0.2% (Briefing.com consensus 0.2%). That left the year-over-year increases at 1.1% and 1.3%, respectively, versus 1.1% and 1.6% in October.
o The key takeaway from this report is that it speaks to why the Fed is choosing to remain patient in raising the fed funds rate, as it reflects the disinflation (and low inflation expectations) trend Fed Chair Powell does not want to see growing deeper roots.
• Initial claims for the week ending December 7 rose by 49,000 to 252,000 (Briefing.com consensus 212,000). That is the highest level of initial claims since September 30, 2017. Continuing claims for the week ending November 30 decreased by 31,000 to 1.667 million.
o The key takeaway from the report is that the latest figure is outside the range of what has become typical reporting for this series, so it may be discounted as aberrant; however, the slowly rising uptick in the four-week moving average for initial claims implies that we may have seen the bottom for this cycle.