Bulls clawed back a slice of the week’s losses during Friday’s session, but the S&P 500 index futures still closed out a down week without making much real progress.
Overnight, bulls easily found their footing near Thursday’s low, setting the day’s bottom at 7661.25 and grinding higher from there as the night progressed. As the open approached, sellers took off some of those early morning gains and set a resistance area around the psychological 7700 level. With options expiration Friday on the calendar, the action heading into the regular session was bound to be volatile.
And it was. The open started with a flush of selling, though support was quickly found near the daily pivot. After chopping around that area for the first hour, bears started to vacate and a small rally took shape. Once resistance at the psychological 7700 level was overcome, bulls drove the index futures to a high of 7714 before profit-takers and bears hit back. There was no support at that psychological level; in fact, the 7700 area turned into resistance for the rest of the day.
Bulls mostly kept the index futures afloat, easily staying in the green, and pushed back toward that resistance level as the close approached. But in the final minutes, once closing imbalances were released, sellers hit back to take off a few handles. The session concluded above the day’s midpoint at 7691.25, gaining 28.75 handles. For the week, that makes for a loss of 113.75 handles, or 1.46%.
Monday, market participants can look forward to a break from planned macro data, along with a few earnings reports in the morning and evening, mostly from Chinese firms.
Among the top components of the index, Tesla Inc (NASDAQ: TSLA) emerged as the biggest gainer. The AI/EV company advanced by $17.73 or 5.14% to close at $362.86 for the day.
That performance was over a dozen times better than the cash index’s advance of 0.41%.
Conversely, the biggest loser ended up being NVIDIA Corp (NASDAQ: NVDA). For the day, the chip designer declined by $2.13 or 0.98% to close at $214.72.
