Thursday’s session in the S&P 500 index futures built upon the momentum from Wednesday’s strong close, carrying forward into the early premarket hours, albeit with restrained enthusiasm.
The day was punctuated by the release of several key economic indicators at 8:30am EST, including initial jobless claims, which fell below expectations, and January’s US retail sales that declined by -0.8%, underperforming against the -0.3% forecast. This mix of economic news triggered reactions from both buyers and sellers, ultimately leading to only a marginally higher opening for the regular session.
Following a defense of Wednesday’s closing levels after the open, the market experienced a gradual ascent throughout the day. The rally, while fairly steady, stopped short of setting new all-time highs but propelled the index futures to close near the day’s peak, up by 28.50 handles at 5046.50.
Among the top components of the index, Tesla Inc (NASDAQ: TSLA) emerged as the biggest gainer. The issue was able to advance by $11.74 or 6.22% to close at $200.45 for the day.
This performance was over 9 times better than the cash index’s advance of 0.69%.
On the other hand, Alphabet Inc Class C (NASDAQ: GOOG) faced the day’s most considerable decline among top components, with its shares dropping by $3.20 or 2.17% to close at $143.94.
