If you are a mega bear, you have to be scratching your head at this week’s, and in particular, Friday’s price action. With four of the top five guns in the mega-cap technology stocks getting hammered following their Q3 reports, it is astonishing that the S&P 500 had a significant gain.
While the rotation out of the tech sector was in full bloom, investors/managers were buying everything in sight. Mainly low price/earnings value stocks or issue has better than expected Q3 reports. These issues, which languished for a decade, were the leaders of the surprising rally.
The after-hours/premarket price action were polar opposites. The bears feasted on the weak Amazon report and were mixed on Apple’s tepid Q4 guidance. However, once the index opened unchanged for the regular session, there were very few sellers to satisfy the insatiable bid.
As a result, the index added 91.75 handles to close at 3911.25 for the session. That made the gain for the week at 147.25 handles. That puts the index back where it was in late September when the index was still reeling from the August CPI report.
It should be noted that the buying frenzy continued after-hours as the last after-hours closing print was another 13 handles higher.
Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) led the way and was by far the biggest winner of the top components. For the session, the issue added $10.94 or 7.6% to close $155.74.
That was well over three times the cash index’s gain of 2.46%.
The only, and therefore the biggest, loser of the top components was Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN). For the session, the issue declined by $7.55 or 6.8% to close at $103.41.
