After a minor “correction” earlier in the week, the S&P 500 index futures were able to find support and set up for a rally in Thursday’s trading session, setting new all-time highs.
Finding its footing near Tuesday’s closing levels in the late overnight and early premarket hours, the index futures embarked on an unrelenting ascent, with the regular session opening above Wednesday’s high. Despite an early test of yesterday’s highs, the bulls demonstrated resilient support, swiftly countering bearish attempts and propelling the index higher.
Economic reports released during the day, including last week’s initial jobless claims aligning with expectations and a widened US trade deficit for January, did little to dampen the bullish momentum at 8:30am EST. Notably, the revision of the US’s Q4 productivity to 3.2%, surpassing the anticipated 3.1%, added fuel to the rally. Concurrently, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell’s continued congressional testimony at 9:40 am EST offered no new surprises, allowing the upward trend to persist.
The afternoon saw the index futures reach their zenith at 5170.50 before encountering resistance and profit-taking that slightly eroded the day’s gains. Nevertheless, the session closed on a high note, with a healthy 50-handle gain, concluding at an all-time closing high of 5161.75.
NVIDIA Corp (NASDAQ: NVDA) stood out prominently among the top components of the index, benefiting from news of its partnership with HP to integrate its CUDA-X technology into AI workstation solutions. This development propelled the tech giant up by $39.69 or 4.47%, closing at $926.69 and establishing new all-time highs.
That performance was over 4 times better than the cash index’s advance of 0.99%.
Conversely, JPMorgan Chase & Co (NYSE: JPM) faced the day’s most notable decline among top components, with its shares receding by $1.66 or -0.88% to finish at $187.87.
