The S&P 500 index futures may not have ended Tuesday’s session with a large gain, but bulls at least distanced themselves far from where the day could have gone.
Geopolitical concerns regarding Russia’s nuclear guardrails being loosened had some market participants in a panic during overnight trading, bringing the index futures down near last week’s low. By 8:30am EDT, bulls had recovered from that level, but several headlines brought the bears back in full swing. October’s US housing starts and building permits both came in 1~2% under expectations, and some comments from Russia’s Minister of Foreign Affairs regarding Ukraine signaling escalation helped put sellers in the driver’s seat.
Swiftly breaching the premarket low and last week’s low, the index futures were brought straight down to the 5855 mark. Fortunately, buy-the-dippers followed up by instigating a rally straight back up from that point. The regular session still began in the red, but it was soon clear the bulls had more conviction than the bears. A steady rally continued for most of the morning into the afternoon, where it slowed near the weekly pivot of 5942.
There were some profit-takers that came in during the penultimate hour, but buyers were undeterred, finishing the day off strong. The session concluded near the day’s high at 5938.75, gaining 18.75 handles.
Among the top components of the index, NVIDIA Corp (NASDAQ: NVDA) emerged as the biggest gainer ahead of its latest earnings report, set to be released Wednesday at 4:20pm EDT. The chip designer was able to advance by $6.86 or 4.89% to close at $147.01 for the day.
That performance was once again a lucky 13 times better than the cash index’s advance of 0.37%.
Conversely, the biggest loser ended up being JPMorgan Chase & Co (NYSE: JPM). For the day, the banking behemoth declined by $2.00 or 0.82% to close at $243.09.
