Directional Bias For The Day:

• S&P Futures are lower at 8:15 AM by ten points
• The odds are for a down day – watch for a break above 4468.75 for a change of fortunes
• Key economic data report due during the day:
  • Retail Sales ( -0.7% est.; prev. -1.1%) at 8:30 AM
  • Core Retail Sales ( -0.1% est.; prev. -0.4% ) at 8:30 AM
  • Philly Fed Manufacturing Index ( 18.9 est.; prev. 19.4) at 8:30 AM
  • Unemployment Claims ( 325K est.; prev. 310K) at 8:30 AM

Directional Bias Before Open:

Weekly: Uptrend Daily: Uptrend

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

Key Levels:

• Critical support levels for S&P 500 are 4474.75, 4451.34, and 4442.59
• Critical resistance levels for S&P 500 are 4486.87, 4492.99, and 4497.78
• Key levels for E-mini futures: break above 4468.75, the high of 7:00 AM and break below 4451.25, the high of 12:00 PM on September 14

Pre-Open

• On Wednesday at 4:00 PM, S&P futures (December 2021) closed at 4472.25 and the index closed at 4480.70 – a spread of about -8.50 points; futures closed at 4472.00 for the day; the fair value is +0.25
• Pre-NYSE session open, futures are lower – at 8:00 AM, S&P 500 futures were down -10.50; Dow by -61; and NASDAQ by -52.75

Markets Around The World

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

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

• Commodities (from two weeks ago):
  • Energy futures are higher
  • Precious metals are lower
  • Industrial metals are mostly lower
  • Most soft commodities are mixed
• Treasuries (from two weeks ago)
  • 10-years yield closed at 1.304%, up +0.2 basis points from two weeks ago;
  • 30-years is at 1.8690%, down -5.0 basis points;
  • 2-years yield is at 0.217%, up +0.6 basis points;
  • The 10-Year-&-2-Year spread is at 1.087, down from 1.091
• VIX
  • At 18.95 @ 7:45 AM; up from the last close; below 5-day SMA;
  • Recent high =  24.74 on August 19; low =  15.19 on August 13
  • Sentiment: Risk-Off

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

Monthly	Confirmed Uptrend August 2021 was a green candle with small upper and lower shadows; at all-time closing and intra-month highs; Stochastic (9, 1, 3): %K above %D near 100; RSI-9 above 80; Above the upper band of a 120-month regression channel; The sequence of higher highs and higher lows
Weekly:	The week ending on September 10 was a relatively large red candle with almost no upper and lower shadows; near all-time highs Stochastic (9,1, 3): %K crossed below %D from near 100 RSI-9 has declined to near 60 The week was down -76.85 or -1.7%; the 5-week ATR is 68.41 A down week; second in the last five weeks, and fourth in the last ten weeks The weekly pivot point=4483.87, R1=4510.09, R2=4561.59; S1=4432.37, S2=4406.15; S1/S2/S3 pivot levels were breached Above 10-week EMA, 39-week SMA, and 89-week SMA Uptrend since March 23, 2020
Daily	A Bullish Engulfing candle with small upper and lower shadows following a Bearish Engulfing candle Stochastic (9, 1, 3): %K crossed above %D from near 0; RSI-9 turned up from 40 to near 50; below 8-day EMA; At/below 20-day EMA; above 50-day EMA, 100-day, and 200-day SMA Uptrend
2-Hour (E-mini futures)	Drifting down from 4548.00 at 8:00 AM on September 6 – lower highs and lower lows; bouncing up since 12:00 PM on September 14 RSI-21 bounced up above 50 from near 30 and after making Bullish Divergence Above EMA20 but below EMA10 of EMA50 Bias: Side-Down
30-Minute (E-mini futures)	Drifting down from a resistance level since 3:30 PM after bouncing from 4427.50, near a support zone RSI-21 has moved down from near 70 to 50 Below EMA20 but above EMA10 of EMA50 Bias: Down-Side
15-Minute (E-mini futures)	The Bollinger Band (20, 2.0) is drifting sideways-to-down since 6:30 PM; The Bollinger Band is expanding slightly since 4:45 AM with price at the lower bound Stochastic (9, 1, 3): %K crossed %D at 5:30 AM Bias: Up-Side

Previous Session

Major U.S. indices closed higher on Wednesday, September 15 in mixed volume. Dow Jones Transportation Average and S&P 500 traded in higher volume. Indices opened higher and after an early sideways moved traded higher closing near the high. Most indices made Bullish Engulfing and similar bullish candlestick formations. All, except Utilities, S&P sectors closed higher.

From Briefing.com:

The stock market had a good day on Wednesday, rebounding modestly from recent losses. The S&P 500 (+0.9%), Nasdaq Composite (+0.8%), and Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.7%) rose between 0.7-0.9% while the Russell 2000 gained 1.1%. […] Ten of the 11 S&P 500 sectors ended the session in positive territory, led by the cyclical energy (+3.8%), industrials (+1.1%), materials (+1.1%), and financials (+0.9%) sectors. The utilities sector (-0.2%) closed slightly lower. […] The 10-yr yield settled higher by three basis points to 1.30% while the 2-yr yield remained unchanged at 0.21%. The U.S. Dollar Index decreased 0.2% to 92.48. […] Total industrial production increased 0.4% in August (Briefing.com consensus 0.4%) following a downwardly revised 0.8% increase in July (from 0.9%). The capacity utilization rate increased to 76.4% (Briefing.com consensus 76.3%) from an upwardly revised 76.2% in July (from 76.1%). […] The Empire State Manufacturing Survey increased to 34.3 in September (Briefing.com consensus 18.6) from 18.3 in August. Import prices decreased 0.3% in August after increasing a revised 0.4% (from 0.3%) in July. Excluding oil, import prices decreased 0.1% after increasing a revised 0.1% (from 0.0%) in July. Export prices rose 0.4% after increasing a revised 1.1% (from 1.3%) in July. Excluding agriculture, export prices rose 0.2% after increasing a revised 1.4% (from 1.6%) in July. The weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index increased 0.3% following a 1.9% decline in the prior week. […] S&P 500 +19.3% YTD Nasdaq Composite +17.6% YTD Dow Jones Industrial Average +13.8% YTD Russell 2000 +13.1% YTD Overseas:  Europe: DAX -0.7%, FTSE -0.3%, CAC -1.0% Asia: Nikkei -0.5%, Hang Seng -1.8%, Shanghai -0.2% Commodities:  Crude Oil +2.29 @ 72.73 Nat Gas +0.18 @ 5.46 Gold -12.10 @ 1795.00 Silver -0.08 @ 23.81 Copper +0.09 @ 4.41