During Tuesday’s session, the bulls and bears both had their time to shine in the S&P 500 index futures, with choppy and whipsaw-like moves throughout the day.
Overnight, bulls defended the daily pivot area, and as the premarket session continued, made their way back to test resistance around Monday’s high. By the time the regular session commenced, the index was just below flat. After testing the day’s 50% retracement level, which coincided with the weekly pivot area, the bulls took charge. Soon enough, the premarket high was breached, but the bears didn’t allow for much progress past that and brought the index futures swiftly back down to the intraday lows.
The whipsaw moves continued right after the intraday low was tested as the bulls made it right back up to make new intraday highs. After peaking at 5629.75, the bulls tried to hold onto the gains, but were eventually overcome by sellers during the lunch hour. For much of the afternoon, the index futures traded between the initial intraday low (5603.50) and Monday’s closing area.
In the final 30 minutes, the bears were able to break through support and make new intraday lows. The bulls weren’t ready to give up, however, and drove the index futures up to Monday’s closing area one last time. Unfortunately, they couldn’t hang on to the last-minute gains and the session concluded in the lower half of the day’s range at 5599.25, declining by 11.50 handles. The bearish end to the day foreshadowed caution ahead of upcoming top component earnings reports, most notably Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG, GOOGL) and Tesla Inc (NASDAQ: TSLA) releasing theirs after Tuesday’s close.
Among the top components of the index, Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ: AMZN) emerged as the biggest gainer. The e-commerce giant was able to advance by $3.86 or 2.11% to close at $186.41 for the day.
That performance was over two percent better than the cash index’s decline of 0.16%.
Tesla Inc (NASDAQ: TSLA) resumed its role from Friday as the biggest loser among top components, preceding its earnings report after Tuesday’s close. For the day, the EV maker declined by $5.13 or 2.04% to close at $246.38, and the decline continued after hours to $225 as of time of writing.
