Directional Bias For The Day:

• S&P Futures are higher at 9:00 AM; bounced up more than 60 points from the 4:15 AM low of 3897.25;
• The odds are for a choppy day with large swings – watch for a break above 3978.25 and a break below 3925.00
• No major economic data report is due during the day:

Directional Bias Before Open:

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

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

Key Levels:

• Critical support levels for S&P 500 are 3901.68, 3864.11, and 3838.24
• Critical resistance levels for S&P 500 are 3932.47, 3964.46, and 3995.57
• The key levels for E-mini futures are a break above 3978.25, a high at 8:15 PM on Sunday,  and a break below 3937.25, a low at 7:45 AM

Pre-Open

• On Friday at 4:00 PM, S&P futures (June 2023) closed at 3948.00, and the index closed at 3916.64 – a spread of about +31.25 points; the futures closed at 3947.00; the fair value is +1.0
• Pre-NYSE session open, futures were higher – at 9:00 AM, S&P 500 futures were up by +7.75, Dow by +93, and NASDAQ by +3.25

Markets Around The World

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

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

• Commodities (Compared to two weeks ago):
  • Energy futures are lower
  • Precious metals are higher
  • Industrial metals are lower
  • Soft commodities are mostly lower
• Treasuries (Compared to two weeks ago)
  • The 10-year yield closed at 3.395, down -56.9 basis points from two weeks ago;
  • The 30-year is at 3.598%, down -28.9 basis points;
  • The 2-year yield is at 3.825%, down -104.6 basis points;
  • The 10-Year-&-2-Year spread is at -0.430, up from -0.907
  • The 30-Year-&-10-Year spread is at 0.203, up from -0.077
• VIX
  • At 26.15 @ 8:45 AM; up from the last close; above the 5-day SMA;
  • Recent high = 30.81 on March 13; low = 18.16 on March 3
  • Sentiment: Risk-Off

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

Weekly:	The week ending on March 17 was a small green candle that looks like an In-NEck candlestick pattern, which is a continuation pattern Stochastic (9,1, 3): %K crossed above the %D; RSI-9 is just below 55 The week was up +55.05 or +1.4%; the 5-week ATR  is 151.15 An up week, second in the last five weeks, and fifth in the previous ten weeks; The weekly pivot point=3896.65, R1=3984.45, R2=4052.25; S1=3828.85, S2=3741.05; No pivot levels were breached Below 10-week EMA, 39-week SMA, and 89-week SMA Uptrend Under Pressure
Daily	A red Harami at 200day SMA Stochastic (9, 1, 3): %K is above the %D but turning down. RSI-9 is above 50; above 8-DMA Below 20-day EMA, 50-day EMA, 100-day SMA, and 200-day SMA; In Correction
2-Hour (E-mini futures)	Within an up-sloping flag since 2:00 PM on March 9 RSI-21 is above 50 after making a bullish Hidden Divergence at 2:00 AM At/above EMA20, which is above EMA10 of EMA50 Bias:  Down-Side
30-Minute (E-mini futures)	Bouncing up from a Double Bottom near 3897.00 with the intermediate high being 4009.25 – at the middle of the range. RSI-21 is moving above 50 Above EMA10 of EMA50, which is above EMA20 Bias: Side
15-Minute (E-mini futures)	The Bollinger Band (20, 2.0) has been moving up since 6:00 PM on Tuesday. The Bollinger Band is expanded with the price moving towards the upper band Bias: Side-Up

Previous Session

Major U.S. indices closed lower on Friday, March 17, in mixed volume. S&P 500 and NASDAQ Composite traded in higher volume.

All S&P sectors closed down. Major indices opened flat and then traded down for rest of the day.

From Briefing.com:

[…] On this quadruple witching options expiration day, investors had a risk-off mentality due to ongoing pressure in the banking sector. […] The SPDR S&P Bank ETF (KBE) fell 5.6% and the SPDR S&P Regional Bank ETF (KRE) fell 6.0%. […] Selling efforts were otherwise broad in nature. While the Vanguard Mega Cap Growth ETF (MGK) slipped just 0.3%, the Invesco S&P 500 Equal Weight ETF (RSP) fell 1.7% and the market-cap weighted S&P 500 fell 1.1%. […] All 11 S&P 500 sectors logged a loss today with information technology (-0.1%) and communication services (-0.5%) sitting atop the leaderboard. Meanwhile, the financial sector (-3.3%) suffered the steepest decline, along with real estate (-2.3%) and industrials (-1.6%). Nasdaq Composite: +11.1% YTD S&P 500: +2.0% YTD S&P Midcap 400: -2.3% YTD Russell 2000: -2.0% YTD Dow Jones Industrial Average: -3.9% YTD […] Total industrial production was unchanged month-over-month in February (Briefing.com consensus +0.5%) following an upwardly revised revised 0.3% increase (from 0.0%) in January. The capacity utilization rate held steady at 78.0% (Briefing.com consensus 78.5%) following a downward revision to 78.0% (from 78.3%) for January. […] Leading Indicators fell 0.3% in February (Briefing.com consensus -0.4%) following a 0.3% decline in January. The preliminary University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index for March dropped to 63.4 (Briefing.com consensus 67.2) from 67.0 in February. In the same period a year ago, the index stood at 59.4. Note: Roughly 85% of responses had been recorded prior to the failure of Silicon Valley Bank. […]