What a difference a day or less makes under the current market conditions. The slide in the S&P 500 index futures in premarket trading breached last week’s low by a few ticks and began to rebound. The catalyst was the beatdown in Crude Oil, which helped alleviate some inflation fears for the time being. At that point, the index was down by 34 handles and dangerously close to the low for the move.
The index was already on the rebound when Producer Price Index data came out at 8:30 AM EST and was a tad better-than-expected. That set the stage for the remainder of the session. Even a negative headline out of Russia (Putin saying Ukraine was not serious about negotiating) around noon EST, deterred the all-out assault on the bears by the bulls.
Heading into the final hour, with the index already in the green by over 50 handles, buyers found another gear and nudged the index above Monday’s high, reaching 4263.25. A mild bout of profit-taking took the index off the high, but still managed to add 90 handles closing at 4262.
Chipmaker and high-beta Nvidia Corp (NASDAQ: NVDA) was the biggest winner of the top components of the index. For the session, the issue gained $16.43 or 7.7% to close at $229.73.
That was over triple the cash index’s gain of 2.16%.
The biggest loser of the top components of the index was the smallest gainer, Berkshire Hathaway Class B (NYSE: BRK.B). For the second day in a row, the issue posted a new all-time and all-time closing high by adding $2.57 or 0.78% to close at $332.55.
PreMarket Prep Stock Of The Day: Coupa Software Inc. (NASDAQ: COUP)
Believe it or not, some big money was made on the upside, at least in the regular session, on the day the issue declined nearly 19%. Read more on COUP here.
