Courtesy of Doug Short.
Update: The S&P 500 volume for the week was the lowest of 2012 with the exception of the holiday-shortened July 4th week.
Today was all about Chairman Bernanke’s Jackson Hole speech. The S&P 500 pre-market futures soared and the indexed popped modestly at the open. The enthusiasm faded a bit before the 10 AM event, plunged into the shallow red before further consideration of the 4,500 word speech sent the market to its intraday high, up 0.97%, an hour later. The afternoon saw the gains cut approximately in half, and the index closed with a modest advance for the day of 0.51%. The last week of August posted a loss of 0.32%, but the month of August had a healthy gain of 1.98%.
The index is now up 11.85% for 2012, which is 0.88% off the interim closing high of April 2nd.
From an intermediate perspective, the S&P 500 is 107.9% above the March 2009 closing low and 10.1% below the nominal all-time high of October 2007.
Here is a 5-minute chart illustrating the market’s distinct but inconsequential reaction to the long-awaited Jackson Hole event.
And here is a look at the market for the pre-Labor-Day weekend, on incredibly light volume — Thursday’s tense anticipation and Friday’s anticlimax.
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.
