Directional Bias For The Day:

• S&P Futures are lower at 8:30 AM; the futures are volatile following the PCE report and before Chair Powell’s speech at the Jackson Hole Conference
• The odds are for a down to sideways day with elevated volatility – watch for a break above 4202.00 and a break below 4180.00 for clarity
• The key economic data report due during the day:
  • Core PCE Price Index ( 0.1% vs. 0.2% est.; prev. 0.6% ) at 8:30 AM
  • Personal Income ( 0.2% vs. 0.6% est.; prev. 0.7%) at 8:30 AM
  • Personal Spending ( 0.1% vs. 0.4% est.; prev. 1.0% ) at 8:30 AM
  • Good Trade Balance ( -89.1B vs. -98.5B est.; prev. 098.6B) at 8:30 AM
  • Prelim Wholesale Inventories ( 0.8% s. 1.3% est.; prev. 1.8%) at 8:30 AM
  • Fed Chair Powell Speech at Jackson Hole at 10:00 AM
  • Revised UoM Consumer Sentiments ( 55.3 est.; prev. 551.) at 10:00 AM
  • Revised UoM Inflation Expectations ( prev. 5.0%) at 10:00 AM

Directional Bias Before Open:

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

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

Key Levels:

• Critical support levels for S&P 500 are4176.36, 4153.39, and 4147.59
• Critical resistance levels for S&P 500 are 4200.54, 4218.70, and 4233.92
• Key levels for E-mini futures: break above 4202.00, the high at 8:30 AM and a break below 4180.00, the low at 7:00 AM

Pre-Open

• On Thursday at 4:00 PM, S&P futures (September 2022) closed at 4202.25, and the index closed at 4199.12 – a spread of about +3.00 points; the futures closed at 4201.00; the fair value is +1.25
• Pre-NYSE session open, futures are lower – at 8:15 AM, S&P 500 futures were down by -10.25, Dow by -38; and NASDAQ by -51.25

Markets Around The World

• Markets in the East closed mostly higher –  Shanghai closed down
• European markets are mostly lower – the UK is 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 mixed
  • Precious metals are lower
  • Industrial metals are lower
  • Soft commodities are mostly higher
• Treasuries (Compared to two weeks ago)
  • The 10-year yield closed at 3.026%, up +13.8 basis points from two weeks ago;
  • The 30-year is at 3.234%, up +6.1 basis points;
  • The 2-year yield is at 3.371%, up +17.7 basis points;
  • The 10-Year-&-2-Year spread is at -0.345, down from -0.306
  • The 30-Year-&-10-Year spread is at 0.208, down from 0.285
• VIX
  • At 22.29 @ 7:45 AM; up from the last close; below the 5-day SMA;
  • Recent high = 24.86 on August 24; low = 19.12 on August 12
  • Sentiment: Risk-Off

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

Weekly:	The red candle with no lower shadow and a small upper shadow; Stochastic (9,1, 3): %K crossed below %D from above 90 RSI-9 is turning down just below 60 The week was down -112.41 or -2.6%; the 5-week ATR  is 167.40 A down week; first in the least five weeks and fourth in the previous ten weeks; The weekly pivot point=4220.52, R1=4273.31, R2=4378.06; S1=4115.77, S2=4062.98; S1 pivot level was breached Above 10-week EMA, below 39-week SMA, and 89-week SMA Uptrend
Daily	A green candle with almost no upper shadow and lower shadows; Stochastic (9, 1, 3): %K is above %D; near 40 RSI-9 turned up just above 40; below 8-day EMA; Below 20-day EMA; above 50-day EMA and 100-day SMA; below 200-day SMA; Uptrend Under Pressure
2-Hour (E-mini futures)	Trending down since 2:00 PM on August 16; turning up near a support level around 4110.00 at 2:00 AM on August 24; a right-hand shoulder is appearing of a potential Head-&-Shoulder pattern. RSI-21 is just below 60 from above 70 Above EMA20, which is above EMA10 of EMA50 Bias: Down-Side
30-Minute (E-mini futures)	Downtrend since 2:00 PM on August 16 is broken; drifting down since 4:00 PM on August 25 RSI-21 has drifted down to just above 50 from 65 At/below EMA20, which is above EMA10 of EMA50 Bias: Up-Side
15-Minute (E-mini futures)	The Bollinger Band (20, 2.0) is drifting lower since 9:45 PM The Bollinger Band is expanding a bit since 8:30 AM, with price walking up the upper band Bias: Side-Down

Previous Session

Major U.S. indices closed higher on Thursday, August 25, in mixed volume. Dow Jones  Transportation  Average and Russell 2000 traded in lower volume. The major indices opened up and then moved after consolidating a bit around noon.

From Briefing.com:

[…] The PHLX Semiconductor Index closed with a 3.7% gain. The positive bias today left all 11 S&P 500 sectors in the green with gains ranging from 0.5% (consumer staples) to 2.3% (materials). The risk-on tone had defensive sectors, utilities (+0.6%), consumer staples (+0.5%), and health care (+1.1%), trailing the broader market. Energy (+0.8%) also fell towards the bottom of the pack amid falling oil prices. WTI crude oil futures fell 1.9% to $93.08/bbl. The Treasury market was mixed with the 2-yr note yield rising two basis points to 3.39% while the 10-yr note yield fell eight basis points to 3.03%. […] Initial jobless claims for the week ending August 20 decreased by 2,000 to 243,000 (Briefing.com consensus 253,000) while continuing jobless claims for the week ending August 13 decreased by 19,000 to 1.415 million. […] The revised Q2 GDP report showed real GDP decreased at an annual rate of 0.6% versus the advance estimate of -0.9%, with an upward revision to consumer spending helping. The Q2 GDP Price Deflator, though, was revised up to 8.9% from 8.7%. […] Weekly EIA Natural Gas Inventories showed a build of 60 bcf after last week’s build of 18 bcf. Dow Jones Industrial Average: -8.4% YTD S&P 400: -9.3% YTD S&P 500: -11.9% YTD Russell 2000: -12.5% YTD Nasdaq Composite: -19.2% YTD Overseas:  Europe: DAX +0.4%, FTSE +0.1%, CAC -0.1% Asia: Nikkei +0.6%, Hang Seng +3.6%, Shanghai +1.0% Commodities:  Crude Oil -1.75 @ 93.08 Nat Gas +0.08 @ 9.34 Gold +7.50 @ 1770.40 Silver +0.16 @ 19.09 Copper +0.06 @ 3.70