Before the US market opened Global equities had extended their Friday gains. The Shanghai Composite had risen 1.76% and the Nikkei 1.74%. European indexes were a bit less energetic. The Euro STOXX 50 would subsequently close with a 0.59% gain. But US equities didn’t follow suit. Our benchmark S&P 500 traded in its narrowest range of the year between its morning -0.50 low and its 0.12% afternoon high. It ended the day with a fractional 0.13% loss. West Texas Crude fell 3.4%, but the US market was presumably more focused on the FOMC meeting that starts tomorrow.
The yield on the 10-year note closed at 1.97%, down one basis point from the previous close.
Here is a snapshot of past five sessions in the S&P 500.
Here is a daily chart of the index. For further evidence of Monday doldrums, note that trading volume was the lowest of the year.
A Perspective on Drawdowns
Here’s a snapshot of selloffs since the 2009 trough.
Here is a more conventional log-scale chart with drawdowns highlighted.
Here is a linear scale version of the same chart with the 50- and 200-day moving averages.
A Perspective on Volatility
For a sense of the correlation between the closing price and intraday volatility, the chart below overlays the S&P 500 since 2007 with the intraday price range. We’ve also included a 20-day moving average to help identify trends in volatility.
