In one of the most volatile weeks in months, the S&P 500 index futures battled back from five dips under 4300 to close green for the day by 105.50 handles and for the week by 33.25 handles at 4423.25. While Monday’s low (4212.75) and stunning recovery had some bulls wavering, others did not wait for a retest of that low to aggressively “buy the dip.”
Excluding Wednesday’s low (4294.25), the other three lows in the 24-hour market were in a narrow range from 4363.25-4376.50. Along these lines, the premarket low was never in serious jeopardy on both Thursday and Friday, exhibiting some of the pent-up buying demand from the intraday traders only.
Many investors fretted over the prospect of runaway inflation and higher interest rates and were aggressive sellers. Others viewed strong earnings from the top two components of the index, Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) and Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) as a sign of things to come.
When the biggest component of the index is the top gainer by a wide margin, it is hard for the index to go anywhere but up. For the session, Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) gained $11.11 or 6.98% to close at $170.33 off its impressive Q1 report.
That was nearly triple the index’s robust gain of 2.43%.
In a rare occurrence, the biggest loser of the top components was the smallest gainer. That being, Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ), which was higher for the fourth day in a row, adding $1.20 or 0.70% to close at $171.79.
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