Courtesy of Doug Short.
Today was strange. Apparently the market a bit confused by the pre-open economic data: GDP scarcely budged in the Second Estimate for Q4 but unemployment claims dropped more than expected. The S&P 500 stumbled at the opening gate but trended to its morning high a few minutes later. It then did a late morning bounce off the shallow red and then trended (and gapped) upward its intraday high at 2:30, at which point the sellers took charge. The index nosedived in the final ten minutes to a small loss for the day of 0.09%. February finished with a respectable 1.11% gain, down from its interim monthly high of 2.19%.
Here is a 5-minute look at today’s curious behavior.
The S&P 500 is now up 6.20% for 2013 and 1.06% below the interim closing high of February 19, 2013.
From a longer-term perspective, the index is 123.9% above the March 2009 closing low and 3.2% 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.
