Wednesday’s abbreviated session in the S&P 500 index futures went firmly to the bulls, even though the FOMC Meeting Minutes from June were set to be released after market close.
The bulls and bears had some back and forth during the overnight and premarket hours, as the bulls firmly defended support around the 5560 level. The bears tested this level one last time just after 8:30am EDT, when last week’s initial jobless claims and May’s US trade deficit came in slightly above expectations. From that point, the bears started clawing their way back before the open of the regular session.
Similar to Tuesday’s session, the opening print was nearly the intraday low, despite starting off in the red. The bulls soon had the index futures trading green on the day and continuing higher. At 10:00am EDT, another round of economic data was released, including ISM’s Services report for June which had the Services PMI at 48.8%, 400 bps below expectations. Indicating a possible economic slowdown, the bears were able to take the news in stride and instigate some selling.
After a few attempts to break support, the bulls were able to defend Tuesday’s close, and the rally was back on. The buying continued for the last couple hours of the short session, and after encountering a bit of resistance at the all-time high, a round of buyers in the last few minutes were able to push to a new all-time high of 5595.75. After one final round of selling in the final minute, the session concluded at a new all-time closing high of 5591, gaining 22.25 handles.
For the third day in a row, Tesla Inc (NASDAQ: TSLA) emerged as the biggest gainer among top components of the index. The EV maker was able to advance by $15.13 or 6.54% to close at $246.39 for the day.
That performance was over 14 times better than the cash index’s advance of 0.45%.
On the other hand, the biggest loser ended up being Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ: AMZN). For the day, the e-commerce giant declined by $2.41 or 1.21% to close at $197.59.
