Directional Bias For The Day:

• S&P Futures are higher
• Drifting up since 2:30 AM; below Monday’s high, which may act as a resistance
• Odds are for sideways to an up day – watch for break below 2502.50 for a change of fortunes
• Key economic data due:
  • Building Permits (1.30M vs. 1.22M est.) at 8:30 AM
  • Current Account (-123B vs. -115B) at 8:30 AM
  • Housing Starts (1.18M vs. 1.17M est.) at 8:30 AM
  • Import Prices (0.6% vs. 0.4% est.) at 8:30 AM

Markets Around The World

• Markets in the East closed mostly lower – Tokyo was up; the intra-day trend side to down for most except for Tokyo
• European markets are mostly higher; Germany and STOXX 600 are down; intra-day trend is sideways to up for most except Germany
• Currencies:
  

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

• Commodities are mostly down
  

  Up	Down
  Crude Oil NatGas Copper Gold Silver Cotton	Platinum Palladium Sugar Coffee Cocoa

• 10-yrs yield closed at 2.229% on September 18 up from September 15 close of 2.202%; 30-years closed at 2.803% up from 2.771%

Key Levels:

• Critical support levels for S&P 500 are 2499.24, 2493.16 and 2490.37
• Critical resistance levels for S&P 500 are 2508.32, 2512.44 and 2516.55
• Key levels for eMini futures: break above 2505.50, the high of 6:00 AM and break below 2502.00, the low of 4:00 AM

Pre-Open

• On Monday, at 4:00 PM, S&P future (December contract) closed at 2502.25 and the index closed at 2503.87 – a spread of about 1.75 points; futures closed at 2502.75 for the day; the fair value is -0.50
• Pre-NYSE session open, futures price action is to the upside – at 8:15 AM, S&P 500 futures were up by +1.75; Dow by +13.00; and NASDAQ by +5.25

Directional Bias Before Open

• Weekly: Up
• Daily: Up
• 120-Min: Side-to-Up
• 30-Min: Side-to-Up

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

Monthly	Confirmed Uptrend Uptrend resumption since Feb 08, 2016 after a pull back of -15.2%
Weekly:	A green shaven top and shaven bottom candle that gapped up from previous day’s red harami candle; all time highs after a brief – seven week pullback Last week’s pivot point 2491.66; R1=2508.80, R2=2517.37; S1=2483.09, S2=2465.95; R1/R2/R3 were breached; support levels not breached for four weeks An up week – third in last five weeks; sixth in last ten weeks Broke above a down sloping flag (2378.36) on April 24, which has bullish implications; first target is near 2520.00 and the second target is near 2640.00 Broke above a down-sloping flag on November 14, 2016; first target of 2285.92 is achieved; second target is near 2467.50 Last swing low, 2322.25, was the low on March 27, 2017 Above 10-week EM; above 39-week SMA and 89-week SMA Confirmed uptrend, though pulling back and moving sideways since June 5
Daily	A small doji candle that mostly stayed above Friday’s range Last pattern, a down-sloping flag in June that was broken to the upside on July 13, is re-asserted Above 20-day EMA, which is above 50-day EMA; Above 100-day SMA and 200-day SMA Pivot Point=2504.04; R1=2508.15, R2=2512.44; S1=2499.75, S2=2495.64; R1 & R2 were breached Confirmed Uptrend
2-Hour (e-mini future)	Moving sideways since 8:00 PM on September 17 in a very narrow range Sequence of higher high and higher low since 12:00 PM September 5 Above rising 20-bar EMA, which is above rising 50-bar EMA
30-Minute (e-mini future)	Drifting sideways since 8:00 PM on September 17 High highs and higher lows, with couple of exceptions, since 5:00 AM on August 29 Above a flattening 20-bar EMA, which is above rising 50-bar EMA

Previous Session

Major U.S. indices closed mostly higher on Monday September 18. Dow Jones Transportation Average closed lower. Markets rose in the morning session then they drifted lower before recovering some of the lost ground in the last hour. The day’s range was small. S&P 500 and NASDAQ Composite made doji candles. Russell 2000 had a relatively larger green real body and DJT a red real body.

• S&P 500 Sectors

Up	Down
Consumer Staples Energy Materials Industrials Finance Technology	Consumer Discretionary Utility Heath Care Real Estate