Even as traders and investors wait for all-important inflation data to be released Thursday and Friday morning, bulls emerged victorious during Wednesday’s session in the S&P 500 index futures.
Overnight, the edge went to the bears initially, as the index futures gradually declined until the official premarket session began. Support held firm at the weekly pivot and the bulls sustained a fairly smooth rally back up from that level. The regular session began at unchanged, just below the premarket high.
There was a tug-of-war between the bulls and bears in the opening minutes, but the bulls soon emerged as victors and went on to breach the premarket high. Once that level was breached, it turned into support and a steady rally ensued. Bulls sliced through the previous all-time high, and after peaking at 5840, the previous high soon became an area of contention.
Sellers hit the bid before September’s FOMC meeting minutes were released at 2:00pm EDT, but the bulls staunchly defended last week’s high just ahead of the release. The primary takeaway from the minutes was that there was more pushback on the larger half-point cut than originally revealed. In addition, there were comments about maintaining a “More gradual path” regarding rate-cuts amongst the day’s Fedspeak. According to the CME FedWatch tool, the probability for no cut in November’s meeting jumped from about 15% to 30%.
Once market participants had a chance to digest the minutes, bulls resumed their rally in the final hour. Despite making new all-time highs in the final minutes (5846.50), resistance still held at the previous all-time high to prevent a close above that level. The session still concluded at a new all-time closing high of 5841.25, gaining a decent 40.75 handles.
Among the top components of the index, Broadcom Inc (NASDAQ: AVGO) emerged as the biggest gainer as AI-related momentum continued. The chip designer was able to advance by $5.22 or 2.89% to close at $185.95 for the day.
That performance was over four times better than the cash index’s advance of 0.69%.
The biggest loser ended up being Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ: GOOGL). Reports of the DoJ considering a possible breakup of Google in their Search antitrust case had investors heading for the exit off the open. The search giant was able to recover some of the day’s losses, but still marked a decline of $2.52 or 1.53% to close at $161.86.
