Whether it was Buffett raising cash, rising tensions in the Middle-East, follow-through from employment data released Friday, or a myriad of other reasons, the S&P 500 index futures had its worst day since September 13, 2022 to start the week.
The decline started early on during Sunday night futures trading, with a nearly 20 handle gap down from Friday’s last after hours print. The bulls initially tried to keep the index futures above Friday’s low, but were soon overwhelmed by sellers. The next area of support was centered around 5300, but once that gave way the pace of the decline accelerated. After more back and forth during the premarket session, the index futures finally bottomed at 5120 about an hour before the opening bell.
Bears covering their positions and buy-the-dippers continued to bring the index futures back up once the regular session began at 5159.50, but it wasn’t without a fight. The morning action saw quick whipsaw moves, from 15 to 50+ handles in either direction. Once the lunch hour came around, the large moves died down somewhat and the index futures peaked at 5279.50. From that point, sellers took back control in a less dramatic fashion, bringing the index futures back to the 5200 area as the close neared.
The final 10 minutes of the session saw a resurgence of buying, quickly bringing the index back above the 5200 level and then some. The session concluded just below the middle of the day’s range at 5217.50, marking another swoon of 158.50 handles. That brings the total three-day decline to 341 handles, which is now 8.8% below all-time highs.
There were no winners among top components of the index, therefore the smallest loser was Broadcom Inc (NASDAQ: AVGO). The chip designer was able to recover most of its premarket losses, ending the day down by $1.74 or 1.21% to close at $142.08.
That performance was over one percent better than the cash index’s decline of 2.91%.
The biggest loser ended up being NVIDIA Corp (NASDAQ: NVDA). Among the general market weakness, reports of expected delays for its upcoming AI chips had traders and investors exiting the issue. For the day, the chip designer declined by $6.82 or 6.36% to close at $100.45.
