Directional Bias For The Day:

• S&P Futures are higher;
• The odds are for an up to a sideways day from the pre-open levels around 4400.00  — watch for a break above 4408.25 and a break below 4391.25 for clarity
• Key economic data report due during the day:
  • Unemployment Claims ( 385K vs. 382K est.; prev. 400K) at 8:30 AM
  • Trade Balance ( -75.7B vs. -74.2B est.; prev. -71.2B) at 8:30 AM

Directional Bias Before Open:

Weekly: Uptrend Daily: Uptrend

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

Key Levels:

• Critical support levels for S&P 500 are 4400.23, 4389.09, and 4372.51
• Critical resistance levels for S&P 500 are 4415.95, 4423.79, and 4428.42
• Key levels for E-mini futures: break above 4408.25, the high of 10:00 AM and break below 4391.25, the low of 11:30 PM

Pre-Open

• On Wednesday at 4:00 PM, S&P futures (September 2021) closed at 4394.00 and the index closed at 4402.66 – a spread of about -8.50 points; futures closed at 4394.75 for the day; the fair value is -0.75
• Pre-NYSE session open, futures are higher – at 8:30 AM, S&P 500 futures were up by +9.50; Dow by +53, and NASDAQ by +25.00

Markets Around The World

• Markets in the East closed mixed – Shanghai, Hong Kong, Seoul, and Singapore closed lower; Tokyo, Sydney, and Mumbai closed up
• European markets are mostly higher – the UK and Spain are lower
• Currencies (from two weeks ago):
  

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

• Commodities (from two weeks ago):
  • Energy futures are mixed
  • Precious metals are higher
  • Industrial metals are mostly lower
  • Most soft commodities are mostly higher
• Treasuries (from two weeks ago)
  • 10-years yield closed at 1.184%, down -9.6 basis points from two weeks ago;
  • 30-years is at 1.832%, down -9.8 basis points;
  • 2-years yield is at 0.180%, down -3.0 basis points;
  • The 10-Year-&-2-Year spread is at 1.004, down from 1.070
• VIX
  • At 17.60 @ 8:15 AM; down from the last close; below 5-day SMA;
  • Recent high =  25.09 on July 19; low =  16.33 on July 23
  • Sentiment: Risk-On-Neutral

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

Monthly	Confirmed Uptrend May 2021 was a Doji with a small upper shadow and a long lower shadow; at all-time closing and intra-month highs; Stochastic %K above %D near 100; RSI-9 near 80; 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
Weekly:	The week ending on July 30 was a Doji candle with almost equal-sized upper and lower shadows; Stochastic (9,1, 3): %K crossed below %D; just below 80 RSI (9) is just around 70 The week was down -16.53 or -0.4%; the 5-week ATR is 94.73 A down week; second in the last five weeks, and third in the last ten weeks The weekly pivot point=4399.25, R1=4425.98, R2=4456.71; S1=4368.52, S2=4341.79; No pivot levels were breached Above 10-week EMA, 39-week SMA, and 89-week SMA Uptrend since March 23, 2020
Daily	A small red Harami candle with almost no lower and upper shadows at all-time highs; %K crossed below %D; near 50 RSI-9 is near 55; below 8-day EMA Above 20-day EMA, 50-day EMA, 100-day, and 200-day SMA Uptrend
2-Hour (E-mini futures)	Moving within a Horizontal Channel since Ju;y 23 between 4420.00 and 4380.00; near the middle of the pattern RSI-21 near 50; At/above EMA20, which is at/above EMA10 of EMA50 Bias: Side
30-Minute (E-mini futures)	Moving sideways since 10:30 AM on July 23; moving within a smaller range – between 4410.00 and 4398.00 –  since 8:00 AM on August 4 RSI-21 is moving around 50 At/above EMA20 but at/above EMA10 of EMA50 Bias: Side
15-Minute (E-mini futures)	The Bollinger Band (20, 2.0) is drifting sideways since 1:00 PM The Bollinger Band is narrow and stable; Stochastic (9, 1, 3): %K crossed below %D at 8:30 AM Bias: Side

Previous Session

Major U.S. indices closed mostly lower on Wednesday, August 4 in mostly lower volume. NASDAQ Composite closed higher and Dow Jones Transportation Average traded in higher volume. Day’s price action was small though the bias was down.

From Briefing.com:

The S&P 500 decreased 0.5% on Wednesday in a tired session. […] The Nasdaq ended the session in positive territory, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.9%) and Russell 2000 (-1.2%) underperformed the S&P 500. […] The 10-yr yield then jumped to 1.21% after the release of the July ISM Non-Manufacturing Index at 10:00 a.m. ET, which increased to a record high of 64.1% (Briefing.com consensus 60.5%). The 10-yr yield settled the session at 1.18%, or one basis point above yesterday’s settlement. […] Nine of the 11 S&P 500 sectors closed lower, including energy (-2.9%), industrials (-1.4%), and consumer staples (-1.3%) with losses over 1.0%. […] The Fed-funds-sensitive 2-yr yield was unchanged at 0.17%. The U.S. Dollar Index increased 0.2% to 92.27. […] The ISM Non-Manufacturing Index for July increased to 64.1% (Briefing.com consensus 60.5%) from 60.1% in June. The dividing line between expansion and contraction is 50.0%. The July reading is a record high, eclipsing the former high of 64.0% seen in May, and marks the fourteenth straight month of growth for the services sector. […] The ADP Employment Change report estimated 330,000 jobs were added to private-sector payrolls in July, which was well below the Briefing.com consensus of 650,000. The June increase was downwardly revised to 680,000 from 692,000. The final reading for the July IHS Markit Services PMI checked in at 59.9, which was slightly higher from the preliminary reading of 59.8. The weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index decreased 1.7% following a 5.7% gain in the prior week. […] S&P 500 +17.2% YTD Nasdaq Composite +14.7% YTD Dow Jones Industrial Average +13.7% YTD Russell 2000 +11.2% YTD Overseas:  Europe: DAX +0.9%, FTSE +0.3%, CAC +0.3% Asia: Nikkei -0.2%, Hang Seng +0.9%, Shanghai +0.9% Commodities:  Crude Oil -2.62 @ 67.99 Nat Gas +0.10 @ 4.17 Gold +1.10 @ 1813.40 Silver -0.11 @ 25.50 Copper -0.04 @ 4.34