The week began with extreme volatility that extended into Thursday’s session with a breakout from three inside days in a row. The rally propelled the index to 4421 on Thursday and retreated to close that session at 4390. However, Friday’s rally came up well shy of Thursday’s high only reaching 4407.75. On a further negative note, the index was poised to post its highest close since September 24 until aggressive sellers appeared in the final 30 minutes.
The overall negative price action was instigated by a much weaker than expected jobs number for the second month in a row. Nevertheless, bulls were able to protect the top of the trading range (4365.75) that led to Thursday’s breakout. An early afternoon retreat and late-day sell-off kept the low for the session well above the breakout point as 4376.25 was the low for the session. The index did rebound off the post-lunch low and surpassed the close but failed a few handles above that and began to tire.
When the rally into the close scenario became null and void, investors headed for the exit to lock in gains from an unusually volatile week. Once the index pierced the close heading into the final 30 minutes, the pace of the decline accelerated in a big way.
The index weakened to end the cash session (4:00 PM EST) lower by 7.5 handles at 4382.50. The selling in the after-hours nudged the index towards the low for session, setting up an important test of support for Sunday nights open.
The top component with the best performance for the day and the week was Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG). For the session, the issue added $17.41 or .63% to close $2801.12. That far exceeded the cash index’s decline of 0.19%.
Nvida Corp (NASDAQ: NVDA) snapped a three-day winning streak and was the worst performer of the top components. For the session, the issue declined $2.44 or 1.16% to close at $208.31.
