The S&P 500 index futures really pulled away Wednesday, finally breaking through recent resistance as US-Iran tensions cooled off noticeably.

Overnight, the bullish news hit early with Trump announcing a two-week ceasefire. Futures shot nearly straight up from an early low of 6652.25 into the 6800 handle, topping out at 6847.25 a couple hours before the open. Once the regular session started, profit-takers rang the register on those big overnight gains, triggering a steady decline. Bulls quickly drew a line in the sand near 6780 and bought the dip hard. 

For the rest of the day, the action settled into semi-tight chop just above the 6800 psychological level, though bears made one more test of it. Bulls pushed right back with a solid rally in the final hour. The session closed somewhat near the day’s high at 6823.75, up a very healthy 167 handles.

Thursday brings February’s PCE report at 8:30 AM ET along with the second revision of Q4 GDP and a small handful of earnings reports in the morning and evening.

Among the top components of the index, Meta Platforms Inc (NASDAQ: META) stood out as the biggest gainer after reports of a new AI model launch, surging $37.37 or 6.50% to close at $612.42.

That performance was over two times better than the cash index’s 2.55% advance.

Conversely, Tesla Inc (NASDAQ: TSLA) was the biggest loser, slipping $3.40 or 0.98% to close at $343.25.