Courtesy of Doug Short.
The S&P 500 popped at the open, but then fell to a midday low, off about half a percent, before making a steady comeback. The closing hour played touch-and-go with break even, with the finally tally being a fractional loss of 0.05% for the day. That’s the fourth consecutive finish in the red. But the month of January saw a gain of 4.36%. To put that into context, that’s the 11th best January since the inception of the S&P 500, in March 1957. The index is 3.76% below its interim high at the end of April 2011.
From an intermediate perspective, the S&P 500 is 94.0% above the March 2009 closing low and 16.1% below the nominal all-time high of October 2007.
Below are two charts of the index, with and without the 50 and 200-day moving averages.
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.
For a bit of international flavor, here’s a chart series that includes an overlay of the S&P 500, the Dow Crash of 1929 and Great Depression, and the so-called L-shaped “recovery” of the Nikkei 225. I update these weekly.
These charts are not intended as a forecast but rather as a way to study the current market in relation to historic market cycles.