December 18, 2024: SPY's Fed-day selloff, replayed

SPY drifted until the Fed's statement in the afternoon, then sold off into the close. Watch it, then trade it from the open.

Prior close

$604.24

Open

$603.97

Gap

0.0%

High

$606.40 at 10:45 AM

Low

$585.90 at 3:55 PM

Last 5-minute close

$586.34

Change

-3.0%

Range

3.4%

From the replay's 5-minute bars, regular session only. Prior close is the last 5-minute bar of the session before.

SPY opened at $603.97, 0.0% from the prior session. The high of the day came on the 10:45 AM bar at $606.40, and the low on the 3:55 PM bar at $585.90. The last 5-minute bar closed at $586.34, -3.0% from the prior close, with a range of 3.4% in one session.

The Fed's statement came out at 2:00 p.m. with a quarter-point rate cut (Federal Reserve), and its new projections showed only two cuts in 2025 instead of four (AP, via Cheddar).

Could you have traded it?

Play the day from the open in Market Replay with the rest of the chart hidden, and trade it the way you normally would. These are the questions I'd want an answer to by the close:

Before the statement, were you in a trade or flat and waiting?
When the selling started, did you short it or wait for a bounce to sell?
Did you hold a position through a scheduled announcement, and at what size?
Where did you take profit on a day that closed near its low?

Watching the replay needs no account. To trade the day yourself it has to be inside your plan's history: Free replays the last 30 weekdays, Trader the last 365 weekdays, and Quant every day since March 28, 2023.