Directional Bias For The Day:

• S&P Futures are lower at 9:15 AM; trading within 4689.00 and 4677.50 since 4:00 AM
• The odds are for a down day with a good chance of a sideways move around pre-open levels near 4685.00 – watch for a break above 4689.00 and break below 4677.50 for clarity
• Key economic data report due during the day:
  • Unemployment Claims ( 184K vs. 218K est.; prev. 227K) at 8:30 AM
  • Final Wholesale Inventories (2.2% est.; prev. 2.2%) at 10:00 AM

Directional Bias Before Open:

Weekly: Uptrend Daily: Uptrend Under Pressure 120-Min: Side-Up

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

Key Levels:

• Critical support levels for S&P 500 are 4680.71, 4674.52, and 4668.29
• Critical resistance levels for S&P 500 are 4705.06, 4722.04, and 4731.99
• Key levels for E-mini futures: break above 4689.00, the high of 7:15 AM and break below 4677.50, the low of 8:30 AM

Pre-Open

• On Wednesday at 4:00 PM, S&P futures (December 2021) closed at 4698.50 and the index closed at 4701.21 – a spread of about -1.75 points; futures closed at 4699.00 for the day; the fair value is -0.50
• Pre-NYSE session open, futures are lower – at 9:00 AM, S&P 500 futures were down by -15.25; Dow by -124; and NASDAQ by -63.75

Markets Around The World

• Markets in the East closed mostly higher – Tokyo and Sydney closed lower
• European markets are lower
• Currencies (Compared to two weeks ago):
  

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

• Commodities (Compared to two weeks ago):
  • Energy futures are lower
  • Precious metals are mixed
  • Industrial metals are mostly lower
  • Soft commodities are mostly lower
• Treasuries (Compared to two weeks ago)
  • 10-years yield closed at 1.484%, down -16.1 basis points from two weeks ago;
  • 30-years is at 1.853%, down -11.6 basis points;
  • 2-years yield is at 0.696%, up +12.2 basis points;
  • The 10-Year-&-2-Year spread is at 0.792, down from 1.032
  • The 30-Year-&-10-Year spread is at 0.371, down from 0.324
• VIX
  • At 20.68 @ 8:30 AM; up from the last close; below 5-day SMA;
  • Recent high = 35.32 on December 3; low =  16.03 on November 16
  • Sentiment: Risk-Off

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

Monthly	November 2021 was a Shooting Star candle at all-time highs; watch for a close below November’s lows; Stochastic (9, 1, 3): %K crossed below %D; from near 100; %D Bearish Divergence RSI-9 is turning down from above 75; Bearish Divergence Above the upper band of a 120-month regression channel; Confirmed Uptrend: sequence of higher highs and higher lows
Weekly:	The week ending on December 3 was a red spinning top candle following a large Bearish Engulfing candle Stochastic (9,1, 3): %K is below %D; near 55 RSI-9 is just above 50 The week was down -56.19 or -1.2%; the 5-week ATR  is 117.74 A down week; third in the last five weeks, and fourth in the previous ten weeks The weekly pivot point=4568.83, R1=4642.55, R2=4746.66; S1=4464.72, S2=4391.00; S1 pivot level was breached At/below 10-week EMA; above 39-week SMA; above 89-week SMA Uptrend Under Pressure
Daily	A small green candle just above the previous day’s close with a small upper shadow and a longer lower shadow; near all-time highs Stochastic (9, 1, 3): %K is above %D; above 90 RSI-9 has risen above 60 from near 30; above 8-day EMA Above 20-day EMA, 50-day EMA, 100-day SMA, and 200-day SMA Uptrend Under Pressure
2-Hour (E-mini futures)	Drifting down from near the upper limit of  a horizontal channel that was broken to the downside on November 26; RSI-21 declined from near 85 at 10:00 PM on Tuesday to near 45 At/above EMA20, which is above EMA10 of EMA50 Bias: Side-Up
30-Minute (E-mini futures)	Moving sideways since 10:00 AM on December 7; moving up since 3:00 PM on December 3; broke above a Horizontal Channel on Monday; 100% extension target near 4690.00 is achieved; the 161.8% extension target is near 4750.00 RSI-21 declined from near 80 on Tuesday to near 40 after making a few Bearish Divergences Below EMA20, which is at/below EMA10 of EMA50 Bias: Up-Side
15-Minute (E-mini futures)	The Bollinger Band (20, 2.0) is moving sideways to down since 11:00 PM on December 7 The Bollinger Band is narrow and relatively stable Stochastic (9, 1, 3): %K is above %D at 9:00 AM Bias: Side

Previous Session

Major U.S. indices closed mostly higher on Wednesday, December 8, in mostly lower volume. Dow Jones Transportation Average traded down in higher volume. The day’s price range was small with no strong directional bias.

From Briefing.com:

The stock market closed higher for the third straight day on Wednesday, albeit at a more modest pace. The S&P 500 gained 0.3% and came up short of a closing record high, while the Nasdaq Composite (+0.6%) and Russell 2000 (+0.8%) outperformed in percentage terms. The Dow Jones Industrial Average increased just 0.1%. Eight of the 11 S&P 500 sectors finished in positive territory, although no sector gained more than 1.0%. The communication services sector led the advance with a 0.8% gain, while the financials (-0.5%), consumer staples (-0.4%) and utilities (-0.1%) sectors closed lower. […] The 10-yr yield rose three basis points to 1.51% after dipping below 1.43% prior to the Pfizer-BioNTech news. The 2-yr yield decreased one basis point to 0.68%, even though the vaccine news supported the case for the Fed to consider a faster taper plan. The U.S. Dollar Index fell 0.5% to 95.91. […] Job openings increased to 11.033 million in October from a revised 10.602 million (from 10.438 million) in September. The weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index increased 2.0% following a 7.2% decline in the prior week. Weekly crude oil inventories decreased by 240,000 barrels after decreasing by 910,000 barrels during the previous week. […] S&P 500 +25.2% YTD Nasdaq Composite +22.5% YTD Dow Jones Industrial Average +16.8% YTD Russell 2000 +15.0% YTD Overseas:  Europe: DAX -0.8%, FTSE flat, CAC -0.7% Asia: Nikkei +1.4%, Hang Seng +0.1%, Shanghai +1.2% Commodities:  Crude Oil +0.45 @ 72.41 Nat Gas +0.11 @ 3.83 Gold +1.10 @ 1786.30 Silver -0.08 @ 22.47 Copper +0.04 @ 4.38