Friday’s session in the S&P 500 index futures bucked recent weeks’ trends, failing to sustain a clear direction. Choppy action dominated, with bears edging out bulls in a weak finish to the day (and week).

Overnight, bulls and bears traded blows, but bulls gained traction as the regular session neared. An early morning Trump post suggesting China open its market to the USA sparked a wild whipsaw, spiking to a new premarket high of 5715.25 before bears seized control. By the opening bell, the index was still treading water. Bulls soon lunged for the premarket high but fell short, and bears unleashed a flush of selling, shoving the index futures into the red. 

Support formed just below the premarket low to bottom at 5662.50, but bull attempts to rally into the green fizzled, with choppy trading ruling the rest of the day. The session closed below the day’s midpoint at 5678, down 6.50 handles, capping a weekly loss of 31 handles, or 0.54%. 

Next week brings reactions to weekend tariff meetings, inflation data Tuesday and Thursday, fedspeak, and more macro data, starting with April’s US Federal Budget at 2:00 PM ET Monday.

Tesla Inc (NASDAQ: TSLA) snagged the biggest win among top components for the second day running, surging $13.44, or 4.72%, to close at $298.26. The issue was possibly boosted by easing China trade tension hopes and reports of Mazda’s adoption of NACS chargers for its EVs in Japan.

That outpaced the cash index’s 0.13% drop by nearly five percent. 

Conversely, Eli Lilly And Co (NYSE: LLY) slumped as the biggest loser for the second consecutive day, shedding $16.88, or 2.25%, to close at $734.57.