While market participants may have rotated capital out of many top components in the S&P 500 index during Tuesday’s session, the index futures still sustained its streak of making new all-time highs.
Bulls held the reins for most overnight trading hours, and fought off the bears before they were able to reach Monday’s low in the early morning. At 8:30am EDT, a slew of economic data was released which incited a quick dip to test Monday’s close. The June data releases included US retail sales being flat, which was higher than expectations of -0.4%. The subsequent dip was quickly bought up, and the bulls continued their buying until the 5700 area where the regular session commenced.
In short, the morning action saw a tug of war above and below the 5700 level in the index futures. The bulls were able to approach the all-time high made Monday, but came up several handles short as selling pressure mounted. For much of the afternoon, the index futures continued to trade around the 5700 area until the final 90 minutes of the session.
As the close neared, the bulls were able to overcome sellers at the morning’s intraday high, and after sustaining a bid, were able to breach the all-time high in a last-minute rally during the final 10 minutes. The rally peaked at 5721.25 shortly before the closing bell, just as some market participants took some profits. The session concluded at a new all-time closing high of 5717.25, advancing by a decent 34.25 handles.
Among the top components of the index, JPMorgan Chase & Co (NYSE: JPM) emerged as the biggest gainer for the second day in a row. The banking behemoth was able to advance by $3.50 or 1.67% to close at $213.62, marking new all-time and all-time closing highs.
That performance was over two times better than the cash index’s advance of 0.59%.
Among many of the tech-focused issues within the top components, NVIDIA Corp (NASDAQ: NVDA) declined, and was the biggest loser. For the day, the chip designer lost $2.08 or 1.62% to close at $126.36.
