Directional Bias For The Day:

• S&P Futures are little changed;
• The odds are for a sideways day – watch for a break above 3449.00 and break below 3421.00 for clarity
• Key economic data due:
  • Core Durable Goods Orders ( 2.4% vs. 1.9% est. ; prev. 3.6% ) at 8:30 AM
  • Durable Goods Orders (1.2% vs. 4.4% est.; prev. 7.6%) at 8:30 AM

Directional Bias Before Open:

Key Levels:

• Critical support levels for S&P 500 are 3433.18, 3425.84, and 3414.02
• Critical resistance levels for S&P 500 are 3449.94, 3456.26, and 3468.31
• Key levels for E-mini futures: break above 3448.75, the high of 3:00 AM on Tuesday and break below 3421.75, the low of 10:30 AM on Tuesday

Pre-Open

• On Tuesday at 4:00 PM, S&P futures (September 2020) closed at 3440.25 and the index closed at 3443.62 – a spread of about -2.25 points; futures closed at 3443.00 for the day; the fair value is -2.75
• Pre-NYSE session open, futures are mixed – at 8:15 AM, S&P 500 futures were up by +1.75; Dow down by -24 and NASDAQ up by +21.75

Markets Around The World

• Markets in East closed mixed – Shangai, Tokyo, Sydney, and Singapore closed down; Hong Kong, Mumbai, and Seoul closed higher
• European markets are mixed – Germany, France, Switzerland, and STOXX 600 are higher; U.K., Spain, and Italy are lower
• Currencies:
  

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

• Commodities:
  

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

• Bond
  • 10-yrs yield closed at 0.682%, up from August 24 close of 0.646%;
  • 30-years is at 1.388% up from 1.350%
  • 2-years yield is at 0.152% up from 0.154%
  • The 10-Year-&-2-Year spread is at 0.530 up from 0.492
• VIX
  • Is at 22.09; up +0.06 from August 25 close; below 5-day SMA;
  • Recent high 33.67 on July 14; low 20.28 on August 11
  • Sentiment: Risk-Neutral

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

Previous Session

Major U.S. indices closed mostly higher on Tuesday, August 25 in mostly lower volume. Dow Jones Industrial Average and Dow Jones Transportation Average closed down. Russell 2000 traded in higher volume. Day’s price movement was essentially sideways. Indices are breaking above recent resistance levels.

From Briefing.com:

The S&P 500 (+0.4%) and Nasdaq Composite (+0.8%) rose to fresh record highs on Tuesday, as the market found continued support in the mega-caps following a disappointing consumer confidence report. The Russell 2000 increased 0.2%, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average declined 0.2%. Six of the 11 S&P 500 sectors closed higher, while five closed lower. The communication services (+1.0%), health care (+0.7%), information technology (+0.5%), and consumer discretionary (+0.5%) sectors outperformed the benchmark index, while the energy (-1.4%) and utilities (-0.9%) sectors declined the most. […] U.S. Treasuries finished the session mostly lower, with longer-dated maturities seeing a bulk of the losses. The 2-yr yield increased one basis point to 0.16%, and the 10-yr yield increased four basis points to 0.68%. The U.S. Dollar Index declined 0.3% to 93.01. WTI crude futures rose 1.7%, or $0.72, to $43.33/bbl. […] The Conference Board’s Consumer Confidence Index declined to 84.8 in August (Briefing.com consensus 93.0) from a downwardly revised 91.7 (from 92.6) in July. The August reading was the lowest reading for the index since May 2014. The key takeaway from the report is the understanding that consumers’ assessment of current conditions and the short-term outlook retrenched, reflecting most likely the real economic impact of the expiration of enhanced unemployment benefits and difficult labor market conditions that will weigh on discretionary spending activity. New home sales surged 13.9% m/m in July to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 901,000 (Briefing.com consensus 787,000). That was the strongest pace of sales since December 2006 and noticeably higher than the pre-pandemic pace of 774,000 seen in January. The S&P Case-Shiller Home Price Index for June increased 3.5% (Briefing.com consensus 3.6%) following a revised 3.6% increase in May (from +3.7%). The FHFA Housing Price Index for August increased 0.9% following a revised 0.2% decline (from -0.3%). […] Nasdaq Composite +27.8% YTD S&P 500 +6.6% YTD Dow Jones Industrial Average -1.0% YTD Russell 2000 -5.8% YTD