In what seemed like a delayed reaction to the 50bp rate-cut, bulls drove the S&P 500 index futures nearly straight up to make new all-time highs Thursday. However, the optimism was largely helped along by well-performing global markets overnight.
The Globex open was more or less the low of Thursday’s session as the bulls started a rally that would last throughout the night. By the regular session open, the index futures were trading virtually at the previous all-time closing high in the front month contract. Once the opening bell rang, bears and profit takers rang the register on the overnight gains.
Support was soon found just under Wednesday’s high and the bulls made their way back up to break through the premarket, intraday and all-time highs. Resistance was encountered once again, but the bulls didn’t give up. Over the lunch hour, buyers made their way back to make new all-time highs and slowly pushed onward to peak at 5797.50 during afternoon trading. From there, sellers took their turn once again to bring the index futures back to where they began the regular session.
The day concluded somewhat near the high at 5778, gaining a very healthy 98 handles to nearly perfectly match the all-time closing high of 5779.36. The question now is if the tendency for the index futures to finish the week on the highs/lows will play out for Friday’s session.
Among the top components of the index, Tesla Inc (NASDAQ: TSLA) easily emerged as the biggest gainer. Benefitting from the broad rally and interest rate cut, the EV maker was able to advance by $16.72 or 7.36% to close at $243.92 for the day.
That performance was over four times better than the cash index’s advance of 1.71%.
There were no losers among the top components, therefore the smallest winner was Berkshire Hathaway Inc Class B (NYSE: BRK.B). For the day, the holding company gained $3.11 or 0.68% to close at $459.71.
