As market participants squared up their month-end positions on Friday, bears opened by countering the previous day’s move in the S&P 500 index futures, only for dip-buyers to counter right back and rescue the session as earnings season powers on.
Overnight, bulls appeared to be aided by a run of positive earnings, including Amazon’s, detailed below. They maintained a slight lift but mostly stuck around the psychological 7500 area.
Off the opening bell, bulls went to test the premarket high and were promptly denied. A sharp reversal took the index futures nearly straight down to the daily pivot, where bulls managed to hold support, bottoming at 7427.50 and starting their comeback. After struggling around Thursday’s close, they pressed the counter-rally back up over the lunch hour and carried it into the afternoon.
In the final hour, bulls finally pushed through resistance at the premarket and intraday high, running on to a high of 7541 once the closing imbalances were in. In the last few minutes, profit-takers and other sellers took back a few of the day’s gains. The session concluded in the upper half of the day’s range at 7519.25, gaining 46.75 handles. For the week, that makes for a gain of 71.75 handles, or 0.96%. For the month, that still leaves a slight loss of 29 handles, or 0.38%.
Monday, market participants can look forward to some minor manufacturing macro data, along with another load of earnings reports in the morning and the evening.
Among the top components of the index, Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ: AMZN) emerged as the biggest gainer after releasing its latest earnings report Thursday evening. Following top- and bottom-line beats, strong AI-related revenue and then some subsequent analyst target raises, the e-commerce giant advanced by $36.08 or 15.32% to close at $271.58 for the day.
That performance was a lucky 21 times better than the cash index’s advance of 0.72%.
Conversely, the biggest loser ended up being Apple Inc (NASDAQ: AAPL) after releasing its own earnings report Thursday evening. After making new all-time highs in the preceding days, the report did not meet that high bar and included news of supply headwinds in upcoming quarters. For the day, the tech giant declined by $24.52 or 7.35% to close at $308.91.
