Courtesy of Doug Short.
A jump in unemployment claims, slippage in the revised GDP and a disappointing Chicago PMI took its toll in the early going, sending the S&P 500 to an intraday low in the late morning. The index then came battling back to an intraday high, up 0.49% shortly after 3:30. But an onset of selling took the index to a loss for the day of 0.23%, which brought the grim tally for the not-so-merry month of May to a -6.27%. That’s the worst monthly performance since last September’s -7.18%.
The index is now up 4.19% for 2012, which is 7.66% off the interim closing high of April 2nd.
From an intermediate perspective, the S&P 500 is 93.7% above the March 2009 closing low and 16.3% 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.
These charts are not intended as a forecast but rather as a way to study the current market in relation to historic market cycles.
