S&P 500 Snapshot: A Small Post-Christmas Gain

The S&P 500 opened near its intraday low and hit it 0.44% intraday high about 18 minutes later. The index then gave up about half its gain by the noon hour and traded in a relatively narrow range to its 0.22% closing gain. Today's intraday high was above the December 13th record close, but at day's end the index is a fractional 0.13% its record close.

Here is a snapshot of the past five sessions.

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The yield on the 10-year note closed at 2.57%, up two BPs from its previous close.

Here is daily chart of the index. The trading volume remains at light, year-end holiday levels.

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Perspective on Drawdowns

Here's a snapshot of selloffs since the 2009 trough.

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Here is a more conventional log-scale chart with drawdowns highlighted. 

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Here is a linear scale version of the same chart with the 50- and 200-day moving averages. 

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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.

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