With Friday's options expirations behind us and no major economic news, aside from the Chicago Fed's rather academic National Activity Index, the S&P 500 was poised to set a new high. The index opened at its intraday low and rallied to a noon hour all-time high, up 1.22%. It then drifted slightly lower until the final hour, when the selling accelerated. The index closed with a gain of 0.62% -- about half its mid-day advance and a mere 0.04% off its January 15th all-time high.

The yield on the 10-year note closed at 2.75%, up 2 bps from Friday's close. The interim high was 3.04% at the end of 2013.

Here is a snapshot of today's action with a bit of Friday afternoon for context.

Today's volume was 11% above its 50-day moving average. As the dashed line illustrates on a daily chart, the January all-time closing high successfully resisted today's advance.

Here is an updated look at the S&P 500 drawdowns (percent off highs) since the market bottom on March 9, 2009. I've highlighted the declines in excess of 5%.

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The S&P 500 is now down 0.04% for 2014.

Here is a longer perspective, starting with the all-time high prior to the Great Recession.

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For a better sense of how these declines figure into a larger historical context, here's a long-term view ofsecular bull and bear markets in the S&P Composite since 1871.