Fading moves remained the play in the S&P 500 index futures on Thursday, as bulls rebounded and clawed back nearly all of Wednesday’s losses and earnings winners and losers were decided.
Overnight, bears quickly distanced themselves from the low of 7331 as notable positive reactions to top component earnings reports, including Microsoft’s, lifted the tone. Bulls then had to defend support at Wednesday’s close through the early morning hours before they were able to extend the rally toward the 7400 handle.
Off the opening bell, bulls had to hold support at the psychological 7400 level once again before the advance could continue. After the first half hour, buyers ran into resistance and that turned into some selling, dragging the index futures back down to test 7400 yet again. Once it was clear that support would hold, the rest of the day was virtually a melt-up.
The fairly calm rally slowed in the afternoon, and the session concluded near the intraday high at 7472.50, gaining 121.25 handles. After hours, the high was soon pushed to 7498 following a positive reaction to Amazon’s earnings report.
Tomorrow, market participants can look forward to some minor macro data throughout the morning, along with another load of earnings reports arriving mostly before the open.
Among the top components of the index, Microsoft Corp (NASDAQ: MSFT) emerged as the biggest gainer. After releasing a stellar earnings report Wednesday evening with top- and bottom-line beats, strong guidance and controlled CapEx, the issue also drew a wave of raised price targets from analysts. Investors ate up the good news and the tech giant advanced by $60.56 or 15.51% to close at $451.10 for the day.
That performance was over nine times better than the cash index’s advance of 1.68%.
Conversely, the biggest loser ended up being Meta Platforms Inc (NASDAQ: META) after its own earnings report Wednesday evening missed bottom-line estimates and arrived with lowered guidance. For the day, the tech conglomerate declined by $46.58 or 7.95% to close at $539.03, marking an 11-day losing streak.
