Wednesday’s session in the S&P 500 index futures cranked the volatility back up, with bears being helped out by fresh tariff and macro headlines. 

Overnight, bulls scrapped for a rally but stalled at 5425, nearly grazing Tuesday’s close where resistance proved too tough to crack. Once the bell rang, sellers dove to test the premarket low in the 5340-5350 zone. Buyers clung on, even mounting a brief comeback, only to smack into a psychological 5400 ceiling. It was all downhill from there.

The tide turned ugly when Fed Chair Jerome Powell spoke at 1:30 PM ET, warning tariffs could dwarf even the Fed’s worst-case estimates and that growth appears to be slowing, unleashing a selloff that smashed through the premarket low. Bears clawed down to 5251 before bulls and profit-taking short sellers sparked a late rally in the final half hour. 

The session closed below the day’s midpoint at 5305.75, shedding 112.50 handles. Thursday is set to bring a synthetic Friday along with earnings reports, including Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (NYSE: TSM) around 1:00 AM ET and Netflix, Inc (NASDAQ: NFLX) near 4:01 PM ET. 

None of the index’s top components dodged the rout, but JPMorgan Chase & Co (NYSE: JPM) emerged as the smallest loser, slipping $3.52, or 1.51%, to close at $229.61.

That held just shy of the cash index’s 2.22% drop. 

NVIDIA Corp (NASDAQ: NVDA) took the hardest hit, cratering $7.71, or 6.87%, to close at $104.49.