Directional Bias For The Day:

• S&P Futures are little changed at 9:00 AM, moving up since 7:00 Am – up by more than 15 points
• The odds are for a sideways to an up day with elevated volatility – watch for a break above 4158.25 and a break below 4140.00 for clarity
• The major economic data report due during the day:
  • Flash Manufacturing PMI ( 49.0 est; prev. 49.2) at 9:45 AM
  • Flash Services PMI ( 51.5 est.; prev. 52.6) at 9:45 AM

Directional Bias Before Open:

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

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

Key Levels:

• Critical support levels for S&P 500 are 4113.20, 4099.40, and 4086.94
• Critical resistance levels for S&P 500 are 4148.57, 4162.57, and 4169.48
• The key levels for E-mini futures are a break above 4158.25, the high at 4:00 PM on April 20, and a break below 4140.00, the low at 7:00 AM

Pre-Open

• On Thursday at 4:00 PM, S&P futures (June 2023) closed at 4153.50, and the index closed at 4129.792 – a spread of about +23.75 points; the futures closed at 4152.50; the fair value is +1.00
• Pre-NYSE session open, futures were mixed – at 8:30 AM, S&P 500 futures were down by -2.00, Dow up by +19, and NASDAQ down by -31.50

Markets Around The World

• Markets in the East closed mostly lower – Mumbai and Singapore closed higher
• European markets are mixed
• Currencies (Compared to two weeks ago):

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

• Commodities (Compared to two weeks ago):
  • Energy futures are mixed
  • Precious metals are mixed
  • Industrial metals are higher
  • Soft commodities are mostly higher
• Treasuries (Compared to two weeks ago)
  • The 10-year yield closed at 3.532, up +24.4 basis points from two weeks ago;
  • The 30-year is at 3.743%, up +20.3 basis points;
  • The 2-year yield is at 4.140%, up +31.5 basis points;
  • The 10-Year-&-2-Year spread is at -0.608, down from -0.537
  • The 30-Year-&-10-Year spread is at 0.211, down from +0.252
• VIX
  • At 17.30 @ 8:30 AM; up from the last close; above the 5-day SMA;
  • Recent high = 25.21 on March 24; low = 16.14 on November 4, 2021
  • 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 small Doji candle below the close of the previous day Stochastic (9, 1, 3): %K is below the %D RSI-9 is just below 60; below 8-DMA Above 20-day EMA, 50-day EMA, 100-day SMA, and 200-day SMA; Uptrend
2-Hour (E-mini futures)	Broke below an up-sloping flag, which has been in effect since 2:00 PM on March 9, the break has been in a sideways move. RSI-21 has been moving down since 8:00 AM on April 14, making lower highs Below EMA10 of EMA50, which is below EMA20 Bias: Side-Down
30-Minute (E-mini futures)	Moving down since 2:00 PM on April 19, moving sideways to down since 4:00 PM RSI-21 is moving around 40 Below EMA 20, which is below EMA10 of EMA50 Bias: Down
15-Minute (E-mini futures)	The Bollinger Band (20, 2.0) has been moving sideways to down since 9:15 PM. The Bollinger Band has been expanding since 3:45 AM, with the price oscillating between the upper and the lower bands. Bias: Down-Side

Previous Session

Major U.S. indices closed mostly lower on Thursday, April 20, in mostly higher volume. Dow Jones Transportation Average closed higher in lower volume.

The major indices gapped down at the open but immediately moved higher until 1:30 PM, when they turned down and traded lower for the rest of the day, making new lows for the day.

From Briefing.com:

[…] The 2-yr note yield fell nine basis points to 4.17% and the 10-yr note yield fell six basis points to 3.55%. […] Nasdaq Composite: +15.2% YTD S&P 500: +7.6% YTD S&P Midcap 400: +2.9% YTD Dow Jones Industrial Average: +1.9% YTD Russell 2000: +1.6% YTD […] Initial jobless claims for the week ending April 15 increased by 5,000 to 245,000 (Briefing.com consensus 242,000) while continuing jobless claims for the week ending April 8 increased by 61,000 to 1.865 million. […] The April Philadelphia Fed Index slumped to -31.3 (Briefing.com consensus -20.0) from -23.2 in March. That is the eighth straight reading in negative territory for this manufacturing survey and the lowest reading since May 2020. The dividing line between expansion and contraction for this report is 0.0. […] Existing home sales declined 2.4% month-over-month in March to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.44 million (Briefing.com consensus 4.50 million) versus a downwardly revised 4.55 million (from 4.58 million) in February. Sales were down 22.0% from the same period a year ago. […] The Leading Index was down 1.2% in March (Briefing.com consensus -0.4%) after falling a revised 0.5% (from -0.3%) in February. Weekly natural gas inventories increased by 75 bcf after increasing by 25 bcf a week ago. […] Overseas:  Europe: DAX -0.6%, FTSE +0.1%, CAC -0.1% Asia: Nikkei +0.1%, Hang Seng +0.1%, Shanghai -0.1% Commodities:  Crude Oil -2.26 @ 77.08 Nat Gas +0.02 @ 2.25 Gold +11.30 @ 2019.50 Silver -0.02 @ 25.37 Copper -0.05 @ 4.03