The euphoria from Wednesday’s session carried over into Thursday’s premarket session. However, the S&P 500 index finally found some sellers when the index was over 30 handles higher early on in the regular session, peaking at 4791.75.
At the tail end of the lunch hour, the index was still near the highs for the session, when the bears made a stand and the index went into retreat mode. The index easily breached the premarket low, falling to 4746.25 and reversing course from there.
After bottoming around 2:00 PM, the index had no problem reversing its losses. For most of the final hour, the index was range bound (4765-4770), until a late round of buyers arrived in the final few minutes of the session.
As a result, the index added 13.25 handles at the closing price of 4774. That brings the total for the move to over 100 handles.
Among the top components, Exxon Mobil (NYSE: XOM) was the biggest winner, instigated by a $2 rally in Crude Oil futures. The energy giant added $2.66 or 2.7% at the closing price of $101.66, recouping all its losses from the last seven sessions and then some.
That was much better than the cash index’s gain of 1.37%.
Eli Lilly & Co (NYSE: LLY) reversed its role from Wednesday and was the biggest loser. There was no specific reason for the sharp decline. For the session, the issue declined by $26.05 or 4.34% at the closing price of $571.50.
