After Wednesday’s attempted rebound, bulls looked poised to keep bidding up the S&P 500 index futures on Thursday, but it was the bears who held the reins.

Overnight, bulls maintained a slight uplift for the most part, setting what would become the day’s high of 7746.50 in the late evening. In the early morning hours, however, the bids started to falter. Reports of a Qatari call for Hormuz traffic to return to what it was before the US-Israeli war on Iran seemed to add further pressure, and the bulls surrendered green territory for the rest of the day.

The regular session commenced virtually at Wednesday’s low, above the premarket low, and buy-the-dippers took their chances. The rally proved very short-lived as the bears fought back and the action turned to chop. For the rest of the morning and through the lunch hour, bulls managed to hold Wednesday’s low, but once the bears were back from feasting, they pressed the index futures lower. There was no real pushback from buyers for the rest of the day. The session concluded just above the fresh intraday low at 7662.50, losing 66.50 handles. After hours, that low was pushed slightly further to 7657.75.

Friday, market participants can look forward to August’s Flash PMI data 15 minutes after the open, along with a few earnings reports before the open.

Among the top components of the index, Broadcom Inc (NASDAQ: AVGO) emerged as the biggest gainer. The chip designer advanced by $1.55 or 0.43% to close at $364.03 for the day.

That performance was over 1% better than the cash index’s decline of 0.84%.

Conversely, the biggest loser ended up being Walmart Inc (NYSE: WMT). For the day, the retail giant declined by $10.46 or 9.15% to close at $103.84.