Monday’s strong close was a good indication for Tuesday’s price action in the S&P 500 index.
In fact, the index spent very little time during the premarket session under Monday’s closing price (4477.50), when it bottomed in premarket trading at 4471.25. During the regular session, the index never came near the close, as the day session low (4487.25), was nearly 10 handles above the close.
Most of the early morning rally was in a stair-step fashion. However, when the index breached the premarket high (4504.50), the pace of the rally accelerated. It appeared to stall just above its September 10 high (4509.25), when it peaked just above that level at 4511.50 around 2:30PM EST and began to retreat.
However, another surge of buyers surfaced in the last 15 minutes and enabled the index to add to its gains. For the session, the index gained 33.25 handles to close at 4510.75.
It should be noted that buyers were lurking in after-hours as well, and tacked on another 5 handles before the conclusion of the after-hours session going off the board at 4515.25.
Previously beaten-down top component Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ) had a strong day off its Q3 beat. For the session, the issue added $3.75 or 2.34% to close at $163.87. That tripled the cash index’s gain of 0.74%.
Tesla Inc. (NASDAQ: TSLA), which was at the top of the leaderboard over the last few weeks, was the biggest loser of the top components. The issue fell subject to some profit-taking ahead of its Q3 report after the close on Wednesday. For the session, the issue declined $5.84 or 0.06% to end the day at $8634.27.
PreMarket Prep Stock Of The Day: Walmart Inc. (NYSE: WMT)
Goldman Sachs says to buy the issue and that is what investors did. Read more about WMT here.
