Ending the week at one extreme of the weekly range can be a good or bad thing. When the S&P 500 index futures end the session near the highs, it often leads to following through on the upside.
However, Friday’s price action was the opposite. After four days of choppy range-bound trading, the bears took firm control of the index for the first time in quite some. The index had a headstart to the downside from premarket trading and never even threatened to go green.
All the intraday pops were met with sellers as the index extended its low for the week to nearly 30 handles. A minor rally in the last fifteen minutes helped trim the loss to 55 handles with a close of 4231.50. That puts some considerable distance (76.25 handles) now between its current price and the recent high for the rebound, made on Tuesday at 4307.75.
With investors going defensive, Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ) was the biggest gainer of the top components. For the session, the issue advanced by $2.54 or 1.5% to close at $169.31.
That was nearly 3% better than the cash index’s decline of 1.29%.
Leading the tech wreck of the top components was Nvidia Corp (NASDAQ: NVDA). The issue, which has been lower in three of the last four sessions, declined by $9.24 or 4.9% to close at $178.48.
