When one or more of the top components releases earnings, it can often drive the action in the S&P 500 index futures. For Thursday’s session, it was Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ: META) in the driver’s seat.
After starting the overnight session in the red, influenced by Meta’s after-hours report yesterday, the action was fairly contained with no major moves to the upside or downside. The morning’s premarket session was a different story, starting when Q1 GDP data was released at 8:30am EST. Quarterly GDP growth came in at 1.6%, compared to 2.2% expected, which sent the index futures spiraling downward.
Within the first half hour of the regular session, the bears were able to take the index futures lower by a total of 85.25 handles, nearly to Monday’s low. It was at that area that the buy-the-dip crowd started to show up, and were soon joined by bears covering their positions. This action mirrored Meta’s, as the company’s stock was bought up throughout the intraday session.
In the final two hours of the regular session, the bulls were testing the premarket high in the index futures, slightly breaching it after overcoming some selling pressure. During the final half hour, the bears were able to take the index futures off fresh intraday highs, but not by much as the bulls stood their ground. The regular session concluded the day down by 25.25 handles at 5082.25. In contrast to Wednesday’s after hours trading, well-received earnings reports from Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) and Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG, GOOGL) had the index futures up nearly 50 handles from the regular session’s closing mark by 5pm EST.
Among the top components of the index, NVIDIA Corp (NASDAQ: NVDA) switched its role once again, and emerged as the biggest gainer. The chipmaker was able to advance by $29.55 or 3.71% to close at $826.32 by the close of the regular session, reclaiming Wednesday’s losses.
That performance was over four percent better than the cash index’s decline of 0.38%.
Unable to recover all of its overnight losses, the biggest loser ended up being Meta Platforms Inc (NASDAQ: META). For the day, the issue declined by $52.12 or 10.56% to close at $441.38, even as several analysts cut their price targets for the company.
