The S&P 500 struggled at the open but managed to inch up to its 0.06% intraday high about an hour into the session. This morning's relatively sound JOLTs report apparently wasn't enough to "jolt" the index into record territory, nor was the Fed's soporific Beige Book (yawn). The index sold off to its -0.34% intraday low early in the lunch hour and then chugged slowly back to within a hair's breadth of yesterday's close, ending the session with a microscopic -0.02% loss.

The yield on the 10-year note closed at at 1.54%, down a basis point from the previous close.

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

(Click on image to enlarge)

Here is daily chart of the index. The index continues to trade in a remarkably narrow range since mid-July. Today's volume was unremarkable.

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.