S&P 500 Snapshot: A Weak Start to Employment Week

The big event for the market this week is, of course, Friday's employment report. But today we got some popular clues about manufacturing. The Markit PMI hit a three-month low, still in expansion but a disappointingly slow one. The ISM PMI showed comparably slow expansion, but the September number was a welcome bounce from contraction in August. Our benchmark S&P 500 opened lower and zigzagged to its -0.62% intraday low during the lunch hour. It struggled higher in the afternoon and cut the loss to -0.33% at the close.

The yield on the 10-year note closed at 1.63%, up three basis points from the previous close but down two BPs from the previous weekly close.

Here is a snapshot of past five sessions in the S&P 500.

Here is daily chart of the index. Volume was light on today's selling. 

(Click on image to enlarge)

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.