Biggest week of earnings, Federal Reserve Bank Meeting and rate decision on Wednesday and a jobs number on Friday. What does that all add up to after a very strong January, “Sell.” In addition, weakness in China’s markets and the S&P 500 index futures spent very little above Friday’s close in the premarket and not one second during the regular session.
Finally, Morgan Stanley waved the red flag on the rally ahead of the opening which added to investors’ defensive stance in the session.
There was selling across the board. Of course, mega cap technology stocks were weak, but the chip sector was the big loser as investors fear more Intel Corp (NASDAQ: INTC)-like earnings and are dumping them as well.
Just as the index was approaching Thursday’s low, it caught a bid in the final minutes of the session to distance itself from the intraday low. For the session, the index declined by 51.75 handles with a closing price of 4032.50.
The biggest gainer of the top components of the index was the smallest loser, UnitedHealth Group Inc. (NYSE: UNH). For the session, the issue declined by $0.26 or 0.05% to close at $485.79.
That was much better than the cash index that shed 1.27%.
The biggest loser of the top components was Nvidia Corp (NASDAQ: NVDA). After closing over $200 on Friday for the first time since last May, the issue declined by $12.03 or 5.9% to close at $191.62.
