Bears and profit-takers took the reins on Friday, capping the week with a muted grind lower in the S&P 500 index futures after a hot jobs report helped revive expectations for higher rates.
Overnight, bulls managed a light rally ahead of the morning’s jobs data, but that advance also marked the session high of 7764.50, a double-top with Thursday’s high. August’s jobs report came in mostly within expectations, with the unemployment rate at 4.1%, except for jobs added, which came in hot at 162K against the 53K expected. The report also included a revision of July’s nonfarm payrolls added, from -23K to 21K. Bears and other sellers quickly took the index futures down into the red with a sharp selloff as market participants adjusted their expectations of a rate increase (higher) in September. Before the open, buy-the-dippers started to come in, and after the bell rang they nearly dragged the index futures back to unchanged.
After some initial chop, sellers started to gain control and soon breached the premarket low. Support was found near Thursday’s 50% retracement, setting the day’s low at 7711.75. Bulls got a recovery rally going over the lunch hour, but bears returned after they were done eating and went back to test support. From there, a few buyers provided a slight lift above the low, though the remainder of the afternoon was spent chopping around near it. The session concluded near the day’s low at 7722, losing 32.75 handles. That marked a perfect scratch week in the front-month contract.
As Monday is a holiday, market participants can look forward to a few earnings reports, mostly after the close on Tuesday.
Among the top components of the index, Meta Platforms Inc (NASDAQ: META) emerged as the biggest gainer. The tech conglomerate advanced by $6.09 or 1.00% to close at $616.77 for the day.
That performance was still better than the cash index’s decline of 0.39%.
Flipping its role from Thursday, the biggest loser ended up being Tesla Inc (NASDAQ: TSLA). For the day, the AI/EV company declined by $22.29 or 5.92% to close at $354.08.
