Directional Bias For The Day:

• S&P Futures are unchanged
• The odds are for a sideways day – watch for a break above 4186.00  and a break below 4175.75 for clarity
• Key economic data report due during the day:
  • Good Trade Balance ( -90.6B vs. -88.2B est.; prev. -87.1B) at 8:30 AM
  • Prelim Wholesale Inventories ( 1.4% vs. 0.5% est.; prev. 0.6%) at 8:30 AM
  • FOMC Statement at 2:00 PM
  • Fed Funds Rate ( <0.25% est.; prev. <0.25% ) at 2:00 PM
  • FOMC Press Conference at 2:30 PM

Directional Bias Before Open:

Key Levels:

• Critical support levels for S&P 500 are 4176.22, 4168.34, and 4153.26
• Critical resistance levels for S&P 500 are 4193.25, 4202.56, and 4211.77
• Key levels for E-mini futures: break above 4185.75, the high of 3:00 AM and break below 4175.75, the low of 7:45 AM

Pre-Open

• On Tuesday at 4:00 PM, S&P futures (June 2021) closed at 4178.00 and the index closed at 4186.72 – a spread of about -8.75 points; futures closed at 4179.00 for the day; the fair value is -1.00
• Pre-NYSE session open, futures are mixed – at 8:45 AM, S&P 500 futures were up by +0.50; Dow down by -71, and NASDAQ down by -24.00

Markets Around The World

• Markets in the East closed mostly higher – Seoul was down
• European markets are mostly higher – Italy is lower
• Currencies (from two weeks ago):
  

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

• Commodities (from two weeks ago):
  • Energy futures are higher
  • Precious metals are higher
  • Industrial metals are higher
  • Most soft commodities are mostly higher
• Treasuries (from two weeks ago)
  • 10-years yield closed at 1.632%, up +0.9 basis points from two weeks ago;
  • 30-years is at 2.300%, down -0.7 basis points;
  • 2-years yield is at 0.176%, up +1.9 basis points;
  • The 10-Year-&-2-Year spread is at 1.456, down from 1.466
• VIX
  • At 17.39 @ 6:45 AM; down from the last close; above 5-day SMA;
  • Recent high =  23.55 on March 25; low =  15.38 on April 14
  • Sentiment: Risk-Neutral-to-On

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

Previous Session

Major U.S. indices closed mixed on Tuesday, April 27 in mixed volume. S&P 500, NASDAQ Composite, and Wilshire 5000 Total Market Index closed lower. S&P 500 and Dow Jones Transportation Average traded in lower volume. Most major indices made small indecisive candlestick formations. Day’s price action was small.

From Briefing.com:

The stock market closed little changed on Tuesday, as investors assumed a wait-and-see mindset for the Fed’s policy announcement tomorrow. The S&P 500 (-0.02%), Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.01%), Nasdaq Composite (-0.3%), and Russell 2000 (+0.1%) finished within 0.3% of their flat lines. There was a cyclical tilt to the session, evident by the outperformances of the S&P 500 industrials (+0.9%), financials (+0.9%), and energy (+1.3%) sectors. […] Conversely, the information technology (-0.3%), communication services (-0.5%), health care (-0.5%), and utilities (-0.8%) sectors were among the laggards in negative territory. No sector declined more than 1.0%, though. […] The 10-yr yield increased five basis points to 1.62%, while the 2-yr yield was unchanged at 0.17%. The U.S. Dollar Index increased 0.1% to 90.89. […] The Conference Board’s Consumer Confidence Index jumped to 121.7 in April (Briefing.com consensus 113.5) from a downwardly revised 109.0 (from 109.7) in March. The April reading is the highest since February 2020. […] The S&P Case-Shiller Home Price Index increased 11.9% yr/yr in February (Briefing.com consensus 11.8%) following an upwardly revised 12.1% increase in January (from 11.1%). The FHFA Housing Price Index increased 0.9% m/m in February. […] Russell 2000 +16.5% YTD S&P 500 +11.5% YTD Dow Jones Industrial Average +11.0% YTD Nasdaq Composite +9.3% YTD Overseas:  Europe: DAX -0.3%, FTSE -0.3%, CAC flat Asia: Nikkei -0.5%, Hang Seng -0.2%, Shanghai flat Commodities:  Crude Oil +1.10 @ 62.99 Nat Gas +0.06 @ 2.94 Gold -1.40 @ 1778.20 Silver +0.16 @ 26.40 Copper +0.05 @ 4.49