S&P 500 top movers: Nike Inc (NKE: NYSE) surges to record high above $130

• S&P 500 Index is looking to close sharply lower.
• Nike Inc (NKE: NYSE) shares post strong gains on upbeat earnings figures.
• Lithium producers’ stocks are suffering heavy losses on Wednesday.

The S&P 500 Index (SPX) opened modestly higher on Wednesday but failed to preserve its momentum and staged a sharp U-turn in the second half of the session. As of writing, the SPX was down 1.65% on a daily basis at 3,260.

All 11 major sectors of the S&P 500 trade in the negative territory on Wednesday with the Energy Index as the worst-performer with a daily loss of 3.4%. 

S&P 500 top movers

After the closing bell on Tuesday, Nike Inc (NKE: NYSE) reported quarterly adjusted earnings of 95 cents per share for the quarter ended in August and beat the analysts’ mean expectation for earnings of 47 cents per share. Additionally, the company reported that the revenue fell by 0.6% to $10.59 billion from a year ago, which was much higher than the analysts’ estimate of $9.14 billion.

On the back of the upbeat earnings figures, at least 15 brokerage firms hiked their price targets and NKE surged to a fresh record high of $130.38. As of writing, NKE was the biggest percentage gainer of the day, up 8.33% at $126.60.

On the other hand, pressured by Tesla Inc’s plans to reduce electric battery costs dramatically, shares of lithium producers are registering heavy losses on Wednesday. At the moment, Lithium Americas Corp (NYSE: LAC), Albemarle Corp (ALB: NYSE) and Livent Corp (LTHM: NYSE) shares are down 19.9%, 14.7% and 7.5%, respectively.