The S&P 500 index futures continued making all-time highs during Friday’s session but ended much closer to the low after some profit-taking.
Overnight, bulls mostly held a modest uplift to new all-time highs, not spending much time in the red. Reports of Iran’s Foreign Minister indicating they are ready to pursue diplomacy if the US changes demands helped give the bulls a modest uplift before the regular session.
Once the opening bell rang, the bulls were once again off to the races, rallying to new all-time highs. The rally slowed near the psychological 7300 level, but bids kept up for a time. Right after hitting a new all-time high of 7300.75, bids gave way to profit-takers and other sellers. A quick flush took the index futures back to test the premarket high and bulls countered once again. Before they were able to retest the high, the reins were given back to the bears following a Trump post about a tariff increase of 25% on EU-produced cars and trucks next week. The decline continued towards unchanged as a slow rollercoaster decline took place for the rest of the session.
Bulls and bears took turns holding control, but the lower highs persisted. In the final 10 minutes, a final flush of selling took away most of the day’s gains. The session concluded below the day’s midpoint at 7258, gaining 14.25 handles. For the week that makes for a gain of 63.25 handles or 0.88%. After hours, the decline continued to make a new low for the day at 7240.75.
Monday, market participants can look forward to some minor macro data and another load of quarterly earnings reports mostly after the close.
Among the top components of the index, Apple Inc (NASDAQ: AAPL) emerged as the biggest gainer following its latest earnings report released Thursday evening. After a record quarter with top- and bottom-line beats, strong growth and several analyst target raises, the tech giant was able to advance by $8.90 or 3.28 percent to close at $280.25 for the day.
That performance was over 11 times better than the cash index’s advance of 0.28 percent.
Conversely the biggest loser ended up being NVIDIA Corp (NASDAQ: NVDA). For the day the chip designer declined by $1.12 or 0.56 percent to close at $198.45.
