LIVE MARKETS-FANG Index: Muzzled on the charts

* U.S. equity index futures suggest opening weakness

* Europe's STOXX 600 on course for third month of gains

* Dollar gains; gold ~flat, crude down

* U.S. 10-Year Treasury Yield ~1.64%

April 30 - Welcome to the home for real-time coverage of markets brought to you by Reuters reporters. You can share your thoughts with us at markets.research@thomsonreuters.com

FANG INDEX: MUZZLED ON THE CHARTS (0900 EDT/1300 GMT)

It's been an eventful week for the NYSE FANG+TM Index

as 6 of its 10 members reported their quarterly numbers. The index ended Thursday up around 0.5% for the week, and 7% for the month.

NYFANG is equal-weighted and includes 5 core FAANG stocks: Facebook , Apple , Amazon.com , Netflix

and Alphabet . It also includes another 5 actively-traded technology/growth stocks: Alibaba , Baidu , Nvidia , Tesla and Twitter

.

TSLA, GOOGL, FB, and AAPL reported Monday-Wednesday, while AMZN and TWTR announced results last night. With this, AMZN is quoted up around 2% , and is the only gainer ahead of the open in the group. TWTR is poised to fall around 13%.

Meanwhile, since the NYFANG ended a record run of 12-straight up days on April 13 , the index has been trapped in a range essentially defined by resistance at the 76.4%/78.6% Fibonacci retracement zone of its February/March slide which resides around 7,070/7,098. The 50% level, and the 50-day moving average, are acting as support now around 6,732:

With this, historical volatility measures have been collapsing. Daily Bollinger Band width has hit a more than 3-month low.

Thus, although the index has been muzzled shorter-term, it appears ripe for another round of more spirited action.

A close outside the support/resistance levels will have the potential to spark increased momentum and volatility.

(Terence Gabriel)

*****

FOR FRIDAY'S LIVE MARKETS' POSTS PRIOR TO 0900 EDT/1300 GMT - CLICK HERE:

<^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ NYFANG04302021

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^>

(Terence Gabriel is a Reuters market analyst. The views expressed are his own)