Directional Bias For The Day:

• S&P Futures are higher
• The odds are for a sideways to an up day – watch for a break above 4173.25 and break below 4155.75 for clarity
• Key economic data report due during the day:
  • Flash Manufacturing PMI ( 60.0 est.; prev. 60.5) at 9:45 AM
  • Flash Services PMI ( 64.3 est.; prev. 64.7) at 9:45 AM
  • Existing Home Sales ( 6.09M est.; prev. 6.01M) at 10:00 AM

Directional Bias Before Open:

Weekly: Uptrend Daily: Uptrend Under Pressure

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

Key Levels:

• Critical support levels for S&P 500 are 41256.62, 4148.62, and 4137.18
• Critical resistance levels for S&P 500 are 4181.96, 4188.13, and 4207.94
• Key levels for E-mini futures: break above 4173.25, the high of 7:45 AM and break below 4155.75, the low of 4:15 AM

Pre-Open

• On Thursday at 4:00 PM, S&P futures (June 2021) closed at 4155.50 and the index closed at 4159.12 – a spread of about -3.75 points; futures closed at 4154.50 for the day; the fair value is +1.0
• Pre-NYSE session open, futures are higher – at 8:30 AM, S&P 500 futures were up by +16.25; Dow by +143, and NASDAQ by +52.00

Markets Around The World

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

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

• Commodities (from two weeks ago):
  • Energy futures are lower
  • Precious metals are higher
  • Industrial metals are lower
  • Most soft commodities are mostly lower
• Treasuries (from two weeks ago)
  • 10-years yield closed at 1.622%, up +6.1 basis points from two weeks ago;
  • 30-years is at 2.329%, up +9.3 basis points;
  • 2-years yield is at 0.153%, down -0.8 basis points;
  • The 10-Year-&-2-Year spread is at 1.469, up from 1.400
• VIX
  • At 20.41 @ 8:15 AM; lower from the last close; below 5-day SMA;
  • Recent high =  28.93 on May 13; low =  18.61 on May 14
  • Sentiment: Risk-Off-Neutral

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

Monthly	Confirmed Uptrend March 2021 was a green candle with a small upper shadow and a lower shadow almost equal to the real body; at all-time closing and intra-month highs; Stochastic %K above %D near 100; RSI-9 near 75; broke above a downtrend line from January 2018 Above the upper band of a 120-month regression channel; The sequence of higher highs and higher lows is resumed
Weekly:	The week ending on May 14 was a red candle resembling Bearish Engulfing with almost no upper shadow and a lower shadow almost twice the size of the real body Stochastic (9,1, 3): %K has crossed above %D; RSI (9) is above 75 The week was down -58.75 or -1.4%; the 5-week ATR is 97.03 A down week; second in the last five weeks, and third in the last ten weeks The weekly week pivot point=4155.71, R1=4254.53, R2=4335.22; S1=4075.02, S2=3976.20; R1/R2 pivot levels were breached Above 10-week EMA, 39-week SMA, and 89-week SMA Uptrend since March 23, 2020
Daily	A green candle that gapped up with almost no lower shadow and small upper shadow; %K crossed above %D RSI-9 is just above 50; above 8-day EMA At/below 20-day EMA; above 50-day EMA, 100-day, and 200-day SMA Uptrend under Pressure
2-Hour (E-mini futures)	Moving up 10:00 AM on May 19; approaching a resistance level around 4180.00 RSI-21 is above 70 Above EMA20, which is above EMA10 of EMA50 Bias: Side-Up
30-Minute (E-mini futures)	Moving sideways to up since 11:30 AM on Thursday RSI-21 is moving around 60 Above EMA20, which is above EMA10 of EMA50 Bias: Up-Side
15-Minute (E-mini futures)	The Bollinger Band (20, 2.0) is moving sideways since 1:45 PM on Thursday The Bollinger Band is expanding slightly since 7:30 AM Stochastic (9, 1, 3): %K is below %D Bias: Up-Side

Previous Session

Major U.S. indices closed mostly higher on Thursday, May 20 in lower volume. Dow Jones Transportation Average closed lower. Major indices opened up and for most of the day traded higher.

From Briefing.com:

The S&P 500 rose 1.1% on Thursday in a mostly broad-based advance led by the growth stocks. The Nasdaq Composite outperformed with a 1.8% gain, turning positive for the week, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.6%) and Russell 2000 (+0.6%) each rose 0.6%. […] Ten of the 11 S&P 500 sectors closed higher, though, and this likely wouldn’t have happened without the participation of the value/cyclical stocks. It’s just that the latter group of stocks didn’t perform as well today. The energy (-0.1%), financials (+0.1%), materials (+0.1%), and industrials (+0.2%) sectors underperformed, with the energy sector being the only group that closed lower. […] The 2-yr yield was flat at 0.15%. The U.S. Dollar Index fell 0.5% to 89.76. WTI crude futures declined 2.2%, or $1.36, to $61.95/bbl. […] Initial jobless claims for the week ending May 15 decreased by 34,000 to 444,000 (Briefing.com consensus 460,000). That is the lowest since March 14, 2020. Continuing claims for the week ending May 8 increased by 111,000 to 3.751 million. Continuing claims for the week ending May 8 increased by 111,000 to 3.751 million. […] The Conference Board’s Leading Economic Index (LEI) increased 1.6% m/m in April (Briefing.com consensus 1.3%) following an unrevised 1.3% increase in March. […] The Philadelphia Fed Index dropped to 31.5 in May (Briefing.com consensus 42.0) from an unrevised 50.2 in April. The Prices Paid indicator moved from 69.1 to 76.8, which was the highest reading since March 1980. The Prices Received indicator jumped from 34.5 to 41.0, which was the highest reading since May 1981. […] Russell 2000 +11.7% YTD Dow Jones Industrial Average +11.4% YTD S&P 500 +10.7% YTD Nasdaq Composite +5.0% YTD Overseas:  Europe: DAX +1.7%, FTSE +1.0%, CAC +1.3% Asia: Nikkei +0.2%, Hang Seng -0.7%, Shanghai -0.1% Commodities:  Crude Oil -1.38 @ 61.81 Nat Gas -0.06 @ 2.93 Gold -5.50 @ 1876.60 Silver -0.07 @ 27.93 Copper -0.04 @ 4.54