The S&P 500 index futures were dominated by bears during Friday’s quad witch session, with bulls only able to slow the decline…until after hours.

Overnight, index futures briefly held late-Thursday gains, but bids evaporated after hitting a high of 6685.50. Support held at Thursday’s low initially in the early morning, but selling accelerated after the open on continued Middle East conflict reports. Index futures found temporary support near the psychological 6600 level for most of the day, until the final two hours. A steady selloff then drove prices to a low of 6523.75 just before the close. 

Some short covering and dip-buying in the final minutes staved off some of the decline, but it was still a swooning day. The session closed in the lower half of the day’s range at 6559, down 101 handles. For the week that amounts to a loss of 126.75 handles or 1.90%. After hours, a Trump post stating US objectives in Iran were nearly complete and military efforts were winding down helped some strong buying, pushing index futures back near 6600 by the last after hours print. 

Next week brings a Q4 US Productivity revision and flash PMI data Tuesday, February’s import price index Wednesday, and a light earnings slate.

Among the top components of the index, Berkshire Hathaway Inc (NYSE: BRK.B) emerged as the smallest loser, declining just $0.54 or 0.11% to close at $480.94.

That performance was still better than the cash index’s 1.43% decline.

On the other hand, NVIDIA Corp (NASDAQ: NVDA) was the biggest loser, falling $5.86 or 3.28% to close at $172.70.