Directional Bias For The Day:

• S&P Futures are higher;
• The odds are for a sideways to an up day; watch for break below 3392.50 and break below 3372.25 for clarity
• Key economic data due:
  • Building Permits (1.55M vs. 1.45M est.; prev. 1.42M) at 8:30 AM
  • Core PPI (0.5% vs. 0.2% est.; prev. 0.1%) at 8:30 AM
  • PPI (0.5% vs. 0.1% est.; prev. 0.1%) at 8:30 AM
  • Housing Starts ( 1.57M vs. 1.40M est.; prev. 1.63M) at 8:30 AM

Directional Bias Before Open:

Weekly: Uptrend Daily: Uptrend 120-Min: Side

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

Key Levels:

• Critical support levels for S&P 500 are 3355.70, 3334.29 and 3317.77
• Critical resistance levels for S&P 500 are 3379.95, 3385.09 and 3397.73
• Key levels for eMini futures: break above 3382.50, the high of 11:00 PM and break below 3372.25, the low of 8:00 PM

Pre-Open

• On Tuesday, at 4:00 PM, S&P future (March 2020) closed at 3370.00 and the index closed at 3370.29 – a spread of about -0.25 points; futures closed at 3369.25 for the day; the fair value is +0.75
• Pre-NYSE session open, futures are higher – at 9:00 AM, S&P 500 futures were up by +11.00; Dow by +88 and NASDAQ by +49.00

Markets Around The World

• Markets in the East closed mostly higher – Shanghai was down;
• European markets are higher
• Currencies:
  

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

• Commodities:
  

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

• Bonds
  • 10-yrs yield closed at 1.571%, down from February 14 close of 1.588%;
  • 30-years is at 2.018%, down from 2.043%
  • 2-years yield is at 1.407%, down from 1.424%
  • The 10-Year-&-2-Year spread is at 0.164 unchanged
• VIX
  • Is at 14.23 down -0.60 from February 18 close; above 5-day SMA
  • Next high resistance is 19.99, the high of January 31; the low support is the low of 13.38 on February 14

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

Monthly	Uptrend January 2020 was a red shooting star like candle with long upper shadow and almost no lower shadow Stochastic %K turned below %D from above 90 RSI-9 is above a downtrend line from January 2018 high; turning down just above 70 At the upper band from near the middle band of the 120-month regression channel Sequence of higher highs and higher lows since February 2016 was broken in December 2018 but has resumed since then
Weekly:	The week ending on February 14 was a large green candle with almost no lower shadow and small upper shadow following another large green candle which completed the three week morning star pattern, albeit in an uptrend Stochastic (9,1, 3): %K is above %D; above 90 RSI (9) is moving up after dipping below 60 Last week was up +52.45 or +1.6%; the 5-week ATR is 78.26 Last week’s pivot point=3361.01, R1=3404.24, R2=3428.33; S1=3336.92, S2=3293.69; R1 pivot level was breached Second consecutive up week; third in last five weeks and seventh in last ten weeks Near all time highs; Last swing low, 2822.12, was the low on August 5, 2019; last swing high was 3027.98, made during the week of July 22, 2019 Above 10-week EMA; above 39-week SMA and 89-week SMA Uptrend
Daily	A relatively small doji like %K is below %D; potential Bearish Divergence RSI-9 is turning from above 60; below 8-day SMA; Above 20-day EMA, 50-day EMA, 100-day SMA and 200-day SMA; Uptrend
2-Hour (e-mini future)	Moving up since 12:00 PM on Tuesday towards the upper bond of a horizontal channel after falling to its lower bound at the week’s open RSI-21 is from near 30 to near 60 after making Bullish Divergence %K is crisscrossing %D above 80 Above 20-bar EMA, which is above EMA10 of EMA50 Bias: Side
30-Minute (e-mini future)	Moving mostly sideways since 10:00 PM on February 5 RSI-21 is moving between 40 and 65 since early February; rising from near 40 to above 50 %K is above %D At/above 20-bar EMA, which is above EMA10 of EMA50 Bias: Side
15-Minute (e-mini future)	Bollinger Band (20, 2.0) is moving up to sideways since 2:00 PM on Tuesday The Bollinger Band is relatively stable and narrow Stochastic (9, 1, 3): %K is crisscrossing %D higher Bias: Up-Side

Previous Session

Major U.S. indices closed mixed on Tuesday, February 18 in mixed volume. NASDAQ Composite and Dow Jones Transportation Average closed higher. S&P 500 and Russell 200 traded in lower volume. Most indices made doji like indecisive candles. Only two S&P sectors – Utilities and Real Estate – closed up.

From Briefing.com:

The S&P 500 declined as much as 0.7% on Tuesday after Apple (AAPL 319.00, -5.95, -1.8%) provided a revenue warning due to the coronavirus. The market resiliently cut its losses during the afternoon, though, leaving the S&P 500 down 0.3% for the session.

The Nasdaq Composite (+0.02%) eked out a closing record, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.6%) and Russell 2000 (-0.2%) still finished lower.

[…]

The 2-yr yield declined two basis points to 1.40%, and the 10-yr yield declined three basis points to 1.56%. The U.S. Dollar Index rose 0.4% to 99.43. WTI crude inched up 0.1% (+$0.05) to $52.10/bbl, recouping its intraday losses.

[…]

• The Empire State Manufacturing Survey for February increased to 12.9 (Briefing.com consensus 6.3) from the prior month’s reading of 4.8.
• The NAHB Housing Market Index for February declined to 74 (Briefing.com consensus 75) from 75 in January.