On Tuesday, after a benign Producer Price Index reading on Tuesday, the index appeared to be in blast-off mode. On Thursday morning, it appeared that Fed governor James Bullard, with his hawkish comments, was going to stick a fork in the rally.
Friday’s session was a mirror image of the week. Off the opening bell, the index was poised to revisit the 4000 handle and post a new high for the move. Around 1:00 PM the index seemed destined to test Thursday’s low, but caught a bid just under the premarket low and rebounded.
The end result was not much changed this week. The index’s gain of 18.75 handles for the session trimmed the loss for the week to a paltry 26 handles at 3974.00.
Excluding Tuesday’s close of 3999.50, the other four closes for the week were in a narrow range from 3955.25-3970.50.
UnitedHealth Group (NYSE: UNH) continued to battle back from its beatdown earlier in the month and was the biggest winner of the top components. For the session, the issue advanced by $14.69 or 2.85% to close at $530.
That was nearly six times better than the cash index’s gain of 0.48%.
Tesla Inc. (NASDAQ: TSLA) was the biggest loser of the top components of the index. The issue did make a new two-year low but trimmed some of those losses into the close. For the session, the issue declined by $2.98 or 1.6%.
PreMarket Prep Stock Of The Day: Exxon Mobil (NYSE: XOM)
With Crude Oil futures under intense selling pressure, the technicals and fundamentals of the issue are discussed. Read more on XOM here.
