Wednesday’s S&P 500 index futures saw new quarterly highs after May’s CPI report dropped, but the bears stole the show by the close.
The index futures were trading around unchanged, when premarket sparks flew following the softer than expected CPI data at 8:30 AM ET, launching the index futures to a peak of 6074.75.
| May Report | Actual | Expected | Previous |
| CPI (MoM) | 0.1% | 0.2% | 0.2% |
| CPI (YoY) | 2.4% | 2.4% | 2.3% |
| Core CPI (MoM) | 0.1% | 0.3% | 0.2% |
| Core CPI (YoY) | 2.8% | 2.9% | 2.8% |
The bulls flexed hard, but profit-takers crashed the party, pulling index futures back near unchanged by the regular session start. Once intraday trading kicked off, it was a brutal tug-of-war, with the index flipping between green and red like a hot potato.
In the afternoon, a slightly weak US Federal Budget report handed bears extra ammo, shoving the index to a daily low of 6006.25. Bulls scrambled to trim the damage, and a choppy afternoon ended with more buying than selling, though not enough to climb above the day’s midpoint. The index settled at 6029, shedding 16 handles.
Tomorrow, market participants can set their sights on more inflation data with the producer price index report at 8:30 AM ET.
Among the top components of the index, Broadcom Inc (NASDAQ: AVGO) emerged as the biggest winner, surging $8.28, or 3.38%, to $252.91.
That gain left the cash index’s 0.29% drop in the dust by over 3%.
On the other hand, Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ: AMZN) wasn’t so lucky, tumbling $4.41, or 2.03%, to $213.20, making it the day’s biggest loser among top components.
