Bears extended the decline to a third straight session on Tuesday, grinding the S&P 500 index futures steadily lower from their recent all-time highs, though the damage stayed relatively modest.

In a change of pace, the overnight session belonged to the bears, who put in an early high of 7770.50 and leaned on the index futures from there. The regular session opened near the Aug 6-7 double-bottom, and the action turned right into chop.

As bulls and bears battled it out, support seemed to hold reasonably well near the premarket low, but consistently lower highs kept stacking up against the buyers. Bulls appeared to find their footing over the lunch hour, yet they could not push the index futures much past the opening level. Lower highs continued through the afternoon, and in the final few minutes sellers went for one last flush to a new low of 7710.25. The session concluded near that low at 7714, losing 54.75 handles.

Wednesday, market participants can look forward to the FOMC meeting minutes being released at 2:00 PM ET, along with a few more earnings reports, mostly from retail names, arriving in the morning and evening.

Among the top components of the index, Apple Inc (NASDAQ: AAPL) emerged as the biggest gainer. The tech giant advanced by $4.44 or 1.45% to close at $310.03 for the day.

That performance was over 2% better than the cash index’s decline of 0.68%.

For the second day in a row, the biggest loser ended up being Meta Platforms Inc (NASDAQ: META). For the day, the tech conglomerate declined by $25.30 or 4.45% to close at $543.67.