After another dip to test recent support, the bulls came back to buy up the S&P 500 index futures, making a new all-time closing high but coming up short of the all-time high made last month.
Overnight and for most of the premarket hours, the bears ruled the action and kept the index futures well in the red. Less than two hours before the opening bell, the bears tested recent support in the 5505 area. Sellers were able to breach that level, but only for a moment as the dip was quickly bought up. As the day progressed, that ended up as a key turning point for the index futures.
Fed Chair Jerome Powell spoke at the European Central Bank (ECB) starting at the regular session open. Among repeating many past sentiments, Powell reiterated that the disinflation trend shows signs of resuming. In short, market participants seemed to interpret his overall comments as a reason to be bullish.
Any bulls that had been waiting in the wings during the premarket session quickly stepped up as the regular session got underway. The initial rally took index futures back up to Monday’s closing level, and once resistance near that level was taken out in the afternoon, the rally was back on. Buyers continued to bid up the index futures, and stepped in with greater volume in the final five minutes to add to the day’s gains.
The session concluded nearly perfectly at the day’s high at 5568.75, gaining a decent 35 handles.
Most top components of the index led the march higher during Tuesday’s session. And once again, Tesla Inc (NASDAQ: TSLA) emerged as the biggest gainer by far. The EV maker was able to advance by $21.40 or 10.20% to close at $231.26 for the day, after reporting better-than-expected Q2 vehicle deliveries.
That performance was over 15 times better than the cash index’s advance of 0.67%.
Conversely, the biggest loser was NVIDIA Corp (NASDAQ: NVDA). For the day, the chip designer declined by $1.63 or 1.31% to close at $122.67.
