Friday’s S&P 500 index futures made new all-time highs, marking another week where the index showed a propensity to finish near the extreme end of its range.
Overnight, bulls kept the index futures mostly in the green, setting the low at 7135.50. Early morning reports, Trump posts and headlines surrounding US-Iran tensions had bulls take a stab at a rally. After just barely making a new all-time high, sellers came back in to take advantage of the morning gains.
The regular session started with more selling than buying, but soon settled into chop with neither bulls nor bears making much progress. Soon enough, bids started to accumulate and resistance gave way. A slow rally took the index futures up near the previous all-time high, and with a wave of buying, pierced through that resistance. The rally quickly plateaued just under the psychological 7200 level for the remainder of the afternoon.
Bulls tapped a high of 7200.50 and tested that area several more times before the close, but were unable to overcome resistance. The session concluded near the day’s high at 7194.75, gaining a decent 51.25 handles. For the week, that makes for a very modest gain of 33.25 handles or 0.46%.
Monday, market participants can look forward to earnings season continuing, with a few reports in the morning and another load after the close.
Among the top components of the index, NVIDIA Corp (NASDAQ: NVDA) emerged as the biggest gainer. The chip designer was able to advance by $8.63 or 4.32 percent to close at $208.27 for the day.
That performance was a fabulous five times better than the cash index’s advance of 0.77 percent.
Conversely, the biggest loser ended up being Walmart Inc (NYSE: WMT). For the day, the retail giant declined by $2.11 or 1.60 percent to close at $129.92.
