After having the weekend to read rate-related reports from the Jackson Hole Symposium, it seems more market participants took the chance to lighten up positions and sell into strength during Monday’s session in the S&P 500 index futures.
The bulls were able to defend Friday’s close during premarket hours for the most part, making for a green open of the regular session. Buyers were also eager to test last week’s high off the open, which coincided with the premarket high. The good news is that the bulls breached last week’s high. The bad news is it was only breached by a few handles, helping to solidify a key point of resistance with many recent highs in the 5662-5669 range.
After failing to instigate a rally above last week’s high, the edge quickly went to sellers. Without encountering much support at Friday’s close, bears and other sellers soon had the index futures trading near the weekly pivot area (5627.75). Buyers used this support area to instigate a couple of midday rallies, but sellers were able to breach it in the afternoon.
Buyers weren’t ready to give up, however, as the index futures bottomed at 5619.75 and recovered some of the day’s losses. Bulls weren’t able to make too much headway, and it seemed like the index futures would close back down at the weekly pivot. But in the last 10 minutes of the session, buyers staved off that possibility. The session concluded in the lower half of the day’s range at 5637, losing 15.50 handles.
Among the top components of the index, JPMorgan Chase & Co (NYSE: JPM) emerged as the biggest gainer. The banking behemoth was able to advance by $0.91 or 0.42% to close at $219.17 for the day, marking new all-time highs.
That performance was slightly better than the cash index’s decline of 0.24%.
Along with many other top tech components, the biggest loser ended up being Broadcom Inc (NASDAQ: AVGO). For the day, the chip designer declined by $6.74 or 4.05% to close at $159.62.
