The tendency for the S&P 500 index futures to finish the week near the highs or lows plays out yet again, even though it was the third Friday of the month (weekly + monthly options expiration) and more sellers participated during the session.
Overnight, the bulls were able to hold support at Thursday’s closing level, also pushing the index futures slightly past the Thursday’s high. Unfortunately, as the opening bell neared, the bids couldn’t hold, and once Thursday’s close was breached, a sharp selloff ensued. At 8:30am EDT, the selloff accelerated when July’s declining housing starts and building permits came in 7.6% and 2.3% below expectations, respectively. Fortunately, the bulls held support nearly perfectly at the daily pivot, bottoming at 5536.50. From that point, a rally took the index futures nearly straight back up to start the regular session at 5549.25.
The rally continued past the opening bell, eventually finding resistance near Thursday’s closing area. From that point, the bears were able to take the index futures back down to test support near the regular session open, but the bulls took back the reins from there.
The subsequent rally took the index futures back into the green to make a new high for the week at 5586.25. Sellers came back into the fray at that point to keep the index futures trading in the 5570’s for most of the afternoon.
As the closing bell approached, bears and profit-takers tried taking the index futures even lower during the final 15 minutes, but buyers fought back in the final 5-10 minutes of the session to finish the day closer to its peak.
The session concluded at 5578.25, tacking on 10.75 handles and establishing a four-day win streak. For the week, that makes for a significant gain of 208 handles or 3.87%. That is also 458.25 handles above the August low, 22.50 handles below the August high, and 143 handles from the all-time high.
Among the top components of the index, NVIDIA Corp (NASDAQ: NVDA) emerged as the biggest gainer for Friday’s session. The chip designer was able to advance by $1.72 or 1.40% to close at $124.58 for the day.
That performance was a sound six times better than the cash index’s advance of 0.22%.
Conversely, the biggest loser ended up being Meta Platforms Inc (NASDAQ: META). For the day, the tech conglomerate declined by $9.91 or 1.84% to close at $527.42.
