To nobody’s surprise, new CPI data ruled the action in Wednesday’s session for the S&P 500 index futures.
The month over month Consumer Price Index (CPI) and Core CPI for March both came in at 0.4%, compared to 0.3% expected. Year over year, that makes for a CPI of 3.5% and Core CPI of 3.8%. Once the data was released at 8:30am EST, the index futures immediately popped and proceeded to drop within seconds. Market participants continued to hit the bid, breaching last week’s low within minutes. Support was eventually found in the 5170’s, more than 100 handles below the premarket high from minutes earlier.
By the opening bell, the bulls were able to recover some losses, but the index was still well in the red. The light rally continued for the first hour of the regular session, recovering nearly half the day’s losses. However, sellers were ready and soon had the index back down, chopping around the 5200 handle for the remainder of the day. Among the additional fedspeak during the day, minutes from the March FOMC meeting were released in the afternoon which gave more insight to the Fed’s unease in achieving their 2% inflation target.
The bulls tried for a late-day rally above the intraday low, but were unable to make any substantial progress by the closing bell. The day ended with a loss of 52.50 handles, closing at 5207.75.
Among the top components of the index, NVIDIA Corp (NASDAQ: NVDA) emerged as the biggest gainer, partially thanks to TSMC Ltd (NYSE: TSM) posting the fastest monthly rate of growth since 2022, as well as the company being seen as more resilient to interest rate changes. The chip giant was able to advance by $16.85 or 1.97% to close at $870.39 for the day.
That performance was over 2 percent better than the cash index’s decline of 1.00%.
Reversing its role from earlier in the week, the biggest loser ended up being Tesla Inc (NASDAQ: TSLA). For the day, the issue declined by $5.12 or 2.89% to close at $171.76.
