In this market environment, good news is good news and bad news is good news. Upon the release of the better-than-expected January jobs data, which signals “higher rates for longer”, the S&P 500 surrendered nearly 50 handles of its earlier gains and actually went red in the premarket session.
However, investors riding the wave of Q4 earnings beats from Meta Platforms Inc. (NASDAQ: META), Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) and shrugging off Apple Inc.’s (NASDAQ: AAPL) less-than-stellar Q1 report, did what they do best, “buy the dip.”
Off the open of the regular session, the index found buyers ahead of the premarket low and two ticks above Thursday’s close, and did not flinch until the final thirty minutes of the session.
Perhaps the only reason for the retreat from the intraday high was the index futures were approaching the nice round number of 5000, which just happens to be more than double off the Covid low back in March 2020 (2332 for the front month contract).
The end result was a solid gain of 51.75 handles at the closing price of 4980.25. That made up the lion’s share of the gains for the week of 70.50 handles.
Among the top components of the index, Meta Platforms Inc. (NASDAQ: META) was the biggest winner by a wide margin. The outsized gain was instigated by the trifecta of a solid Q4 beat, additional $50B added to its buyback program and its first ever declaration of quarterly $0.50 dividend. In what may be its best session ever, the issue leaped $80.21 or 20.3% at the closing price of $474.99.
This gain was more than 19 times better than the cash index’s gain of 1.06%.
Following its Q1 report, Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) was the biggest loser of the top components. For the session, the issue declined $0.95 or 0.05%.
