Courtesy of Doug Short.
The S&P 500 sold off at the open to an intraday low of 0.71% by late morning. The index struggled off the lows in the afternoon and trimmed the day’s loss to 0.32% at the close.
Here is a 2-hour look at the index since the end of November. We can see the post-election selloff, the “Boehner Bounce” rally in hopes of a Cliff resolution, which evolved into an erratic Santa rally that was largely reversed when Cliff anxieties returned. The rally following the near-term Cliff vote was a relatively brief, and the market has shown some misgivings as we head into earnings season.
The S&P 500 is now up 2.17% for 2013 and 0.59% below the interim closing high of January 4, 2013.
From a longer-term perspective, the index is 115.4% above the March 2009 closing low and 6.9% below the nominal all-time high of October 2007.
For a better sense of how these declines figure into a larger historical context, here’s a long-term view of secular bull and bear markets in the S&P Composite since 1871.