Bullish momentum seen Thursday and Friday in the S&P 500 index futures continued into Monday’s session, this time with the least amount of aggressive selling by the bears.
By the open of Monday’s regular session, premarket participants already had the index futures steadily trading up nearly 25 handles from Friday’s close. Off the opening bell, profit takers and bears were only able to take the index about 5 handles lower, before buyers stepped back in. The bulls then resumed their early morning rally, easily cutting through resistance at the premarket high, and continuing their march higher. By mid-morning, the rally had cooled off and the index futures started to chop about in the 5180’s.
It wasn’t until the conclusion of the lunch hour that the rally started to resume its course and fresh intraday highs were made. In the final 15 minutes of the regular session, a wave of buyers and sellers covering their positions were able to tack on another ~10 handles to the day’s gains. The day concluded just one handle off fresh intraday highs at 5206.50, advancing by 51.75 handles. This also established a three-day win streak for the index futures, advancing a total of 160 handles or 3.17%.
Among the top components of the index, Eli Lilly And Co (NYSE: LLY) emerged as the biggest gainer, reversing its role from Friday. The healthcare issue was able to advance by $31.40 or 4.27% to close at $766.68 for the day.
That performance was over four times better than the cash index’s advance of 1.03%.
In another role reversal from Friday, the biggest loser ended up being Apple Inc (NASDAQ: AAPL). For the day, the tech titan declined by $1.67 or 0.91% to close at $181.71.
