Courtesy of Doug Short.
Today we got some economic news, the most tantalizing of which was this morning’s surprisingly strong pre-market ADP jobs report counterbalanced by a weaker-than-expected ISM Non-Manufacturing. The reverse mentality of the market (or is that perverse?) saw the former as bad new supporting QE tapering, and the latter as good news (keeping QE at full throttle). The S&P 500 hit its 0.26% intraday high at mid-morning and the sold off to its 0.89% intraday low in advance of the Fed’s latest Beige Book release, which read pretty much like a carbon copy recent predecessors. Variations of the word “moderate” occurred 63 times and “modest” 50 times. The market found the Fed’s view reassuring enough to trim its loss to a modest 0.13% — its fourth consecutive decline
Here is a 15-minute look at the past five sessions, starting November 27, when the S&P 500 hit is all-time closing high. What’s particularly interesting is the rise in volatility over this timeframe. The table in the lower left shows the 2013 percentile of the intraday ranges, from a low 1st percentile on the day of the closing high to the 82nd percentile today.
Volume picked up a bit with today’s selling, which was probably a continuing sign of caution ahead ahead of Friday’s jobs report.
The S&P 500 is now up 25.71% for 2013 and 0.80% below the all-time closing high of November 27.
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.
