In what started out as a very positive Thursday, the S&P 500 index futures sharply reversed after making new all-time highs to give up all of the early morning gains.
Overnight, the bulls staunchly defended support at the daily pivot, instigating a steady rally that would last the rest of the premarket session, partially thanks to positive earnings from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd. (NYSE: TSM). September’s US retail sales came out at 8:30am EDT slightly above expectations (0.4% vs. 0.3% exp.), which also gave a temporary lift in premarket trading.
The regular session began just under the all-time/premarket high, but it was at this point the bulls lost the rest of their momentum. Bears and profit-takers soon had the index futures testing unchanged. For the morning, support near that area seemed to hold. But in the last two hours of the session, bears came back to erase any gains that were left.
Bulls prevented any major dips into the red for the rest of intraday trading, ending the day flat. The session concluded in the lower half of the day’s range at 5887, perfectly at unchanged.
Among the top components of the index, Broadcom Inc (NASDAQ: AVGO) emerged as the biggest gainer, partially thanks to the overall rally in AI chip-related issues. The chip designer was able to advance by $4.71 or 2.66% to close at $181.53 for the day.
For those who wish to keep count, that performance was over 266 times better than the cash index’s advance of 0.01%.
Conversely, the biggest loser ended up being Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ: GOOGL). For the day, the search giant declined by $2.23 or 1.35% to close at $162.93.
