Bears kept the pressure on Wednesday, running their streak to three consecutive losing sessions in the S&P 500 index futures at the halfway point of the shortened week.

Overnight, bulls managed to hold support near unchanged, but in doing so they also marked what would end up being the day’s high at 7691.25. During the early morning hours, bears broke through into the red and never looked back.

The regular session opened in the red and stayed there. The initial chop held fairly level for the first 90 minutes. The US Treasury then announced an increased $6B maximum par amount for Thursday’s debt buyback covering 10-20 year maturities. Sellers took hold and pushed straight to new lows. Buyers rebounded from a low of 7628.75 and clawed their way back up over the lunch hour, but the action levelled off into contained chop just below the opening range for the rest of the afternoon.

The session concluded below the day’s midpoint at 7643.75, losing 36.75 handles.

Thursday, market participants can look forward to August’s PPI report at 8:30 AM ET, along with a few notable earnings reports before the open and more notable ones after the close.

Among the top components of the index, Meta Platforms Inc (NASDAQ: META) emerged as the biggest gainer. The tech conglomerate advanced by $40.21 or 6.55% to close at $653.69 for the day.

That performance was a magnificent 7% better than the cash index’s decline of 0.46%.

Conversely, the biggest loser ended up being Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ: GOOGL). For the day, the tech giant declined by $7.71 or 2.28% to close at $330.65.