Quadruple witch expirations, like the one Friday, often mark significant turning points in the S&P 500 index. Either a reversal of the current trend takes hold, or the index keeps plowing ahead in its existing direction. Based on Monday’s price action, the bears better get out of the way.
The slight weakness in the final minutes of Friday’s choppy session turned out to be yet another buying opportunity. In fact, the index opened a few points higher on Sunday evening and did not even touch Friday’s closing print.
Similar to the premarket session, the open was close to the low for the intraday session. The bears attempted to make a stand at last week’s high, but buyers could not be restrained at the onset of the lunch hour as it was taken out with ease.
Around 2:30 PM EST, the futures index reached the 4800 handle for the first time since January 2022. Heading into the final hour, the bulls made another attempt to make a new high but were rebuffed.
As the index was tapering off into the close, some “hawkish” talk from the Fed’s Daly accelerated the decline into the close. The end result was still positive as the index tacked on 22.25 handles at the closing price of 4790.25.
Among the top components, Meta Platforms Inc. (NASDAQ: META) was the biggest winner. For the session, the issue added $9.70 or 2.9% at the closing price of $344.62.
That was over two percent better than the cash index’s advance of 0.45%.
The only, and therefore biggest loser of the top components of the index was UnitedHealth Group Inc. (NYSE: UNH). The divergence from the index was instigated by a downgrade from HSBC to reduce along with a lower price target of $480. For the session, the issue declined by $4.57 or 0.86% at the closing price of $526.55.
