Directional Bias For The Day:

• S&P Futures are lower at 8:30 AM; broke below an upsloping flag overnight – the 100% extension target around 4159.00 is achieved, and the 161.8% extension target is around 4144.00
• The odds are for a down day – watch for a break above 4169.00 for a change of sentiments
• The major economic data report due during the day:
  • Beige Book at 2:00 PM

Directional Bias Before Open:

Weekly: Uptrend Resumed Daily: Uptrend 120-Min: Up-Side

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

Key Levels:

• Critical support levels for S&P 500 are 4123.18, 4113.20, and 4099.40
• Critical resistance levels for S&P 500 are 4140.36, 4158.00, and 4169.48
• The key levels for E-mini futures are a break above 4169.00, the high at 2:45 AM, and a break below 4152.50, the low at 8:15 AM

Pre-Open

• On Tuesday at 4:00 PM, S&P futures (June 2023) closed at 4179.25, and the index closed at 4154.87 – a spread of about +25.50 points; the futures closed at 4180.00; the fair value is -0.75
• Pre-NYSE session open, futures were lower – at 8:15 AM, S&P 500 futures were down by -25.75, Dow by -134, and NASDAQ by -110.00

Markets Around The World

• Markets in the East closed mixed – Shanghai, Hong Kong, Tokyo, and Mumbai closed lower; Sydney, Seoul, and Singapore closed higher
• European markets are mostly lower – Spain and Switzerland are higher
• Currencies (Compared to two weeks ago):

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

• Commodities (Compared to two weeks ago):
  • Energy futures are higher
  • Precious metals are mixed
  • Industrial metals are higher
  • Soft commodities are higher
• Treasuries (Compared to two weeks ago)
  • The 10-year yield closed at 3.572, up +23.5 basis points from two weeks ago;
  • The 30-year is at 3.787%, up +19.3 basis points;
  • The 2-year yield is at 4.208%, up +37.0 basis points;
  • The 10-Year-&-2-Year spread is at -0.636, down from -0.501
  • The 30-Year-&-10-Year spread is at 0.215, down from +0.257
• VIX
  • At 17.50 @ 6:45 AM; up from the last close; above the 5-day SMA;
  • Recent high = 25.21 on March 24; low = 16.34 on January 4, 2022
  • Sentiment: Risk-Off

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

Weekly:	The week ending on April 14 was a small Bullish Engulfing candle. Stochastic (9,1, 3): %K is above the %D; RSI-9 is just above 60 The week was up +32.62 or +0.8%; the 5-week ATR  is 90.64 An up week, fourth in the last five weeks, and fifth in the previous ten weeks; The weekly pivot point=4124.46, R1=4176.37, R2=4215.10; S1=4085.73, S2=4033.82; R1 pivot level was breached Above 10-week EMA and 39-week SMA; below 89-week SMA Uptrend Resumed
Daily	A relatively small red Spinning Top candle just above the previous day’s close Stochastic (9, 1, 3): %K is turning down above the %D RSI-9 is just below 70; above 8-DMA Above 20-day EMA, 50-day EMA, 100-day SMA, and 200-day SMA; Uptrend
2-Hour (E-mini futures)	Moving up within an up-sloping flag, which has been in effect since 2:00 PM on March 9, attempting to break below the lower bound RSI-21 has declined to just above 30 from above 70 on Tuesday Below EMA10 of EMA50, which is below Bias:  Up-Side
30-Minute (E-mini futures)	Moving sideways to down with a few wild swings since Thursday between 4198.00 and 4149.00 RSI-21 is moving around just above 30 Below EMA 20, which is below EMA10 of EMA50 Bias: Side-Down
15-Minute (E-mini futures)	The Bollinger Band (20, 2.0) has been moving down since 2:45 PM on Tuesday. The Bollinger Band has been expanding since 2:00 AM, with the price walking down the lower band. Bias: Down

Previous Session

Major U.S. indices closed mixed on Tuesday, April 18, in mostly higher volume. S&P 500, NYSE Composite, and Wilshire 5000 Total Market Index closed higher. Dow Jones Industrial Average, Dow Jones Transportation Average, NASDAQ Composite, and Russell 2000 closed lower. S&P 500 traded in lower volume.

The major indices opened higher and made the day’s high in the initial minutes of trading before turning down immediately. They made lows for the day in the late morning and then moved higher but closed off the highs.

From Briefing.com:

[…] Bank stocks in general were weak today as evidenced by the 1.3% decline in the SPDR Bank ETF (KBE) and the 2.2% decline in the SPDR Regional Bank ETF (KRE). Regional bank losses also weighed on the Russell 2000, which closed with a 0.4% loss. […] The 2-yr note yield was up three basis points to 4.21% and the 10-yr note yield slipped two basis points to 3.57%. Nasdaq Composite: +16.1% YTD S&P 500: +8.2% YTD Russell 2000: +3.1% YTD Dow Jones Industrial Average: +2.5% YTD S&P Midcap 400: +2.0% YTD […] Total housing starts might have declined 0.8% month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.420 million (Briefing.com consensus 1.407 million), but that was due to a decline in multi-unit starts. Single-unit starts were up 2.7% month-over-month to 861,000. Building permits, meanwhile, declined 8.8% month-over-month, driven by a 24.3% decline in permits for 5 units or more, whereas single-family permits increased 4.1% month-over-month to 818,000. […] Overseas:  Europe: DAX +0.6%, FTSE +0.4%, CAC +0.5% Asia: Nikkei +0.5%, Hang Seng -0.6%, Shanghai +0.2% Commodities:  Crude Oil -0.12 @ 80.89 Nat Gas +0.09 @ 2.37 Gold +11.50 @ 2019.40 Silver +0.16 @ 25.27 Copper +0.02 @ 4.09