Directional Bias For The Day:

• S&P Futures are higher at 8:45 AM; moved up more than 70 points from 4:45 PM lows of  4136.75; driving down since 4:15 AM high of 4209.25;
• The odds are for a sideways to down day from pre-open levels with elevated volatility – watch for a break above 4209.25 and a break below 4164.00 for clarity
• Key economic data report due during the day:
  • Goods Trade Balance (125.3B vs. 105.0B est.; prev. -106.0B) at 8:30 AM
  • Prelim Wholesale Inventories ( 2.3% vs. 1.5% est.; prev. 2.5) at 8:30 AM
  • Pending Homes Sales ( -1.0% est.; prev. -4.1%) at 10:00 AM

Directional Bias Before Open:

Weekly: Uptrend Under Pressure Daily: Uptrend Under Pressure 120-Min:  Down

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

Key Levels:

• Critical support levels for S&P 500 are 4175.70, 4161.72, and 4114.65
• Critical resistance levels for S&P 500 are 4196.17, 4223.25, and 4234.63
• Key levels for E-mini futures: break above 4209.25, the high at 4:15 AM and a break below 4164.00, the low at 3:30 AM

Pre-Open

• On Tuesday at 4:00 PM, S&P futures (June 2022) closed at 4168.00 and the index closed at 4175.20 – a spread of about -7.25 points; futures closed at 4170.50 for the day; the fair value is -2.50
• Pre-NYSE session open, futures are higher – at 8:30 AM, S&P 500 futures were up by +17.25; Dow by +219; and NASDAQ by +3.75

Markets Around The World

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

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

• Commodities (Compared to two weeks ago):
  • Energy futures are higher
  • Precious metals are lower
  • Industrial metals are lower
  • Soft commodities are mostly lower
• Treasuries (Compared to two weeks ago)
  • 10-years yield closed at 2.736%, up +1.1 basis points from two weeks ago;
  • 30-years is at 2.832%, up +0.6 basis points;
  • 2-years yield is at 2.581%, up +16.7 basis points;
  • The 10-Year-&-2-Year spread is at 0.155, down from 0.311
  • The 30-Year-&-10-Year spread is at 0.096, up from 0.101
• VIX
  • At 31.11 @ 8:15 AM; down from the last close; above the 5-day SMA;
  • Recent high = 33.81 on April 26; low = 19.75 on April 20
  • Sentiment: Risk-Neutral-Off

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

Weekly:	The week ending on April 22 was a red candle with a large upper shadow and almost no lower shadow; the high of the week was above the high of the previous week;’s candle Stochastic (9,1, 3): %K is below %D; near 30 RSI-9 is below 40 The week was down -120.81 or -2.8%; the 5-week ATR  is 149.43 A down week; third in the last five weeks, and sixth in the previous ten weeks The weekly pivot point=4350.78, R1=4433.94, R2=4596.10; S1=4188.62, S2=4105.46; R1/R2/S1/S2/S3 pivot levels were breached Below 10-week EMA and 39-week SMA; above 89-week SMA Uptrend Under Pressure
Daily	A large red candle that closed below the previous day’s lows following a green hammer candle on Tuesday; broke below an uptrend line from February 24 low Stochastic (9, 1, 3): %K crossed below %D; near zero RSI-9 is around 25; below 8-day EMA; Below 50-day EMA, 20-day EMA, 200-day SMA, and 100-day SMA; Uptrend Under Pressure
2-Hour (E-mini futures)	The downtrend since 12:00 AM on March 30; lower highs and lower lows since April 21; bouncing off  from a low of 4136.75 at 4:00 PM on Tuesday RSI-21 is below 40 after bouncing from below 20 Below EMA20, which is below EMA10 of EMA50 Bias: Down
30-Minute (E-mini futures)	Drifting up since 4:30 PM within a downtrend that at 9:30 AM on April 21 RSI-21 moved up to near 45 from near 25 At/below EMA20, which is below EMA10 of EMA50 Bias: Down-Side
15-Minute (E-mini futures)	The Bollinger Band (20, 2.0) is drifting up since 9:30 PM; a bearish down-sloping flag is forming The Bollinger Band is relatively expanded but stable Bias: Down-Side

Previous Session

Major U.S. indices closed lower on Tuesday, April 26, in mixed higher volume. Dow Jones  Industrial Average and S&P 500 traded in lower volume.

The major indices open lower and then moved down. They drifted sideways in the middle of the day before declining further.

From Briefing.com:

The S&P 500 fell 2.8% on Tuesday in a relatively broad-based decline led by the growth stocks. The Nasdaq Composite (-4.0%) and Russell 2000 (-3.2%) both underperformed while the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 2.4%. […] Losses broadened out as the day progressed, though, leaving ten of the 11 S&P 500 sectors in negative territory and S&P 500 below yesterday’s intraday low (4200.82) by the close. […] The consumer discretionary (-5.0%), information technology (-3.7%), and communication services (-3.2%) sectors posted the steepest declines. […] The energy sector (+0.04%) was the only sector in the S&P 500 that closed higher, although it couldn’t keep pace with the increase in oil prices ($101.42, +2.79, +2.8%), which reclaimed $100 per barrel. […] The 2-yr yield fell eight basis points to 2.55%, and the 10-yr field fell five basis points to 2.77%. The U.S. Dollar Index rose 0.6% to 102.34. […] Total durable goods orders increased 0.8% month-over-month in March (Briefing.com consensus +1.1%) following an upwardly revised 1.7% decline (from -2.2%) in February. Excluding transportation, durable goods orders increased 1.1% month-over-month (Briefing.com consensus +0.5%) following an upwardly revised 0.5% decline (from -0.6%) in February. [..] New home sales decreased 8.6% month-over-month in March to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 763,000 units (Briefing.com consensus 770,000) from an upwardly revised 835,000 (from 772,000) in February. On a year-over-year basis, new home sales were down 12.6%. […] The Conference Board’s Consumer Confidence Index dipped to 107.3 in April (Briefing.com consensus 106.0) from an upwardly revised 107.6 (from 107.2) in March. In the same period a year ago, the index stood at 117.5. […] The S&P Case-Shiller Home Price Index was up 20.2% year-over-year in February (Briefing.com consensus 18.9%) while the FHFA Housing Price Index increased 2.1% month-over-month in February. […] Dow Jones Industrial Average -8.5% YTD S&P 500 -12.4% YTD Russell 2000 -15.8% YTD Nasdaq Composite -20.2% YTD Overseas:  Europe: DAX -1.2%, FTSE +0.1%, CAC -0.5% Asia: Nikkei +0.4%, Hang Seng +0.3%, Shanghai -1.4% Commodities:  Crude Oil +2.79 @ 101.42 Nat Gas +0.14 @ 6.79 Gold +5.00 @ 1901.30 Silver -0.17 @ 23.50 Copper +0.00 @ 4.44