Thursday’s session in the S&P 500 index futures may have recovered most of Wednesday’s losses, but it wasn’t quite smooth sailing for the bulls.
The premarket session had the index futures trading lower, until the Producer Price Index (PPI) data for March was released at 8:30am EST. The MoM PPI came in at 0.2% vs. 0.3% expected, and Core PPI was within expectations at 0.2%. Compared to the CPI data released Wednesday, this news gave the bulls their turn to initiate a rally off support found at Wednesay’s Globex low.
By the time the regular session commenced, the index futures were comfortably in the green, but that didn’t last long. Bears took the index swiftly down to meet Wednesday’s intraday low within the first hour, where support was found once again. Gaining back control of the action, the bulls took the index futures back up, encountering resistance at the opening high.
Resistance at that level held steady during the lunch hour, until a report was released which detailed Apple Inc.’s (NASDAQ: AAPL) plans to unveil their AI-focused M4 chip later this year. The AI news gave bullish traders and investors reason to buy up Apple, also affecting the S&P 500 index. Buyers subsequently took full control of the index futures, initiating a rally that continued into the 5250 area, where it remained for the rest of the session.
In the last 15 minutes before the close, there was a short wave of selling which took the index futures off their intraday highs, but not by much. The day ended with a gain of 35.50 handles, closing at 5243.25.
Among the top components of the index, Broadcom Inc (NASDAQ: AVGO) emerged as the biggest gainer, slightly beating out Apple’s performance. The chip company was able to advance by $60.09 or 4.54% to close at $1382.46 for the day.
That performance was over 6 times better than the cash index’s advance of 0.75%.
As growth and tech stocks lead the way, the more value-focused Berkshire Hathaway Inc Class B (NYSE: BRK.B) was the biggest loser among top components. For the day, the holding company declined by $1.50 or 0.37% to close at $407.61.
