The bad news from Thursday’s session is that the four-day win streak has now been broken for the S&P 500 index futures. The good news is that new all-time highs were made, though not by much, and dip-buyers continued to prevent a major decline.
After making new all-time highs during overnight hours, most of the premarket session was spent oscillating around Wednesday’s all-time closing high of 5366. Volatility picked up once economic datum was released at 8:30am EDT, but the bulls soon had the index back up for a positive open.
Off the open, the bears were quick to test the previous close, but the bulls quickly stepped in, and took the index futures right back up to test the premarket high. After marginally surpassing that high and making a new all-time high of 5373.25, bears started to take back control of the action. By the lunch hour, support was being tested at the premarket low. After breaching this level, the bulls were able to catch a bid just above the 5350 area and rallied back up, nearing Wednesday’s close.
Once bullish momentum slowed in the 5360’s, the bears were quick to capitalize and relentlessly took the index lower to test the daily pivot around 5345. It was at this point that the tide turned and the bulls staged another comeback. Once the index was trading back in the 5360’s, neither the bulls nor bears gave up much ground, which turned the final hour of the regular session into chop just underneath Wednesday’s close.
In one final hurrah, the bulls were able to sustain an edge over sellers during the final 5 minutes of trading, ending the day slightly down by 2 handles. The slight decline precedes May’s US employment report slated to be released Friday morning at 8:30am EDT. Thursday’s close of 5364 being just below the all-time closing high made Wednesday has also turned the level/area into a double-close.
Among the top components of the index, Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ: AMZN) emerged as the biggest gainer and established a four-day win streak. The company benefited from the announcement of a deal between the NBA and its Prime streaming service and was able to advance by $3.72 or 2.05% to close at $185.00 for the day.
That performance was over two percent better than the cash index’s scratch gain.
On the other hand, NVIDIA Corp (NASDAQ: NVDA) broke its three-day winning streak, and was the biggest loser among top components. News of the DOJ and FTC launching investigations into NVIDIA, Microsoft and OpenAI for potentially violating antitrust rules put a bit of a damper on the chip designer. For the day, the issue declined by $14.42 or 1.18% to close at $1209.98.
