Coming into Friday’s optimistic premarket session, one would’ve thought the S&P 500 index futures were slated to end the week on a strong note. Wrong.
The session was heavily influenced by the latest economic data releases, including January’s housing starts and Producer Price Index (PPI). Notably, Core PPI for last month surged to 0.6%, significantly exceeding the anticipated 0.1%.
This higher-than-expected inflation indicator, released at 8:30am EST, prompted a swift reaction from sellers, driving the index futures notably into negative territory. Despite this initial downturn, the bulls managed a counterattack, pulling the index to a marginally lower open for the regular session.
However, their efforts were met with renewed bearish momentum, which saw the index descending to Thursday’s lows shortly after the market opened. A bid at this critical juncture sparked a sharp reversal, briefly bringing the index back into the green by midday. The remainder of the afternoon was marked by a series of reversals, with both bullish and bearish forces vying for control. Ultimately, the bears prevailed, guiding the index steadily lower in the last two hours of trading.
The day concluded with the index futures recording a loss of 26.75 handles, closing at 5019.75. This movement contributed to a weekly decline of 24.25 handles or 0.48%.
Eli Lilly And Co (NYSE: LLY) stood out as the session’s biggest winner among top components, buoyed by an upgraded price target from Morgan Stanley. The pharmaceutical giant reached new all-time and all-time closing highs, closing the day up $24.28 or 3.20% at $782.06.
That performance was over 3 percent better than the cash index’s decline of 0.50%.
Conversely, Meta Platforms Inc (NASDAQ: META) faced the steepest drop among the index’s leading components, distancing itself from its recent all-time highs. For the day, the stock fell $10.71 or -2.21% to close at $473.32.
