The S&P 500 index tends to perform fairly well on days of Federal Reserve Meetings/Policy announcements and the index did not disappoint in Wednesday’s session.
The selling pressure from the after-hours session continued into the first few hours of Wednesday’s premarket session, but randomly found a bottom 4321.25 and sharply reversed course. Once the index went positive (above the close 4343.25) on the session around midnight, it never came back to be negative.
By the open of the regular session, the index was over 20 handles higher and after a brief decline to 4356.50, bulls had control of the market. The positive response to the Federal Reserve Bank’s actions propelled the index to 4406.50. That just happened to be the exact low from Friday’s after-hours session, but well shy of Friday’s closing price of 4421.75.
After putting in the high, several whipsaws had the index moving in five-point increments in minutes until the close. Heading into the final hour the index made an attempt to make a new high but came up shy and retreated under 4400 to end the session.
For the session, the index added 40.25 handles to close at 4483.50, which is the first substantial gain in the index since last Wednesday.
Chip-maker Nvidia Corp (NASDAQ: NVDA) was the biggest gainer of the top components, rallying back above Friday’s close. The issue added $6.95 or 3.30 percent to close at $219.41, which exceeded Friday’s close by $0.41. That tripled the index’s gain of 0.98 percent.
By far, Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ: FB) was the leader on the downside. Some bad press for the social media company was the culprit. The issue ended the session lower $14.27 or 4% at $343.41. This extends the losing streak to eight consecutive sessions.
PreMarket Prep Stock Of The Day: Lucid Group Inc. (NASDAQ: LCID)
Puts in a double top, and out come the profit-takers. Read more on LCID here.
