One day ahead of Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s speech at Jackson Hole, market participants took the opportunity to sell the recent gains in the S&P 500 index futures during Thursday’s session. This took the index down from fresh highs for the week, back near Monday’s low.
After the bears had broken through support at Wednesday’s close overnight, the bulls were able to bid up the index futures to make new weekly highs during the premarket session. Off the regular session open, the bulls and bears battled it out but came up against resistance at the July 18 high. There was also some economic data released in the morning between 8:30am and 10:00am EDT, including last week’s initial jobless claims, August’s S&P flash U.S. services & manufacturing PMI, and July’s existing home sales. The data were all at or near expectations, but it wasn’t enough to give the bulls a reason to rally ahead of Friday’s Fedspeak. In fact, market participants lowered their expectations of a 0.50% rate cut in September, according to the CME FedWatch tool.
As market participants digested the day’s news, sellers soon took the reins. Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) also led many top tech components lower initially, after announcing cuts to FY25 forecasts Wednesday evening. Once the index futures breached the premarket low of 5631.50, the pace of the decline accelerated.
Support was found just above the 5600 level, and the bulls mounted a rebound. This took the index futures back up to the premarket low, but sellers came right back in to make new intraday lows once again. Support didn’t hold until the index futures reached last week’s high, which also coincided with this week’s open.
During the penultimate five minutes of the regular session, sellers were able to make slightly new lows for the day, but buyers fended them off to pare some of the losses in the final five minutes. The session concluded near the day’s low at 5594, losing 47.50 handles.
Among the top components of the index, JPMorgan Chase & Co (NYSE: JPM) emerged as the biggest gainer. The banking behemoth was able to advance by $2.03 or 0.95% to close at $216.63 for the day, just below all-time highs.
That performance was nearly two percent better than the cash index’s decline of 0.78%.
On the other hand, the biggest loser ended up being Tesla Inc (NASDAQ: TSLA). Between the overall market decline, news of a new National Transportation Safety Board investigation and a delay in Full Self-Driving rollout for Cybertruck, the EV maker declined by $12.61 or 5.65% to close at $210.66.
