The Dow, Nasdaq and S&P 500 all logged record closes today. Our preferred benchmark, the S&P 500, rose at the open, as the pre-market futures indicated and rose to the 0.45% intraday high in the late morning (a record intraday high). The index slowly drifted lower to its 0.28% closing gain, which was more than enough for a record close (a o.o9% gain would have done the trick).

The closing yield on the 10-year note rose four basis points to 1.56%.

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

As we see on the daily chart, trading volume on today's record-setting session remained vacation-light.

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.