Today the popular press was in general agreement that Hillary bested the Don in last night's debate, which apparently was a relief for Janet Yellen, who (according to a CNBC article) would quickly tender her resignation if Trump should become our 45th president. In any case, today our benchmark S&P 500 gyrated at open, showed indecision during the first 90 minutes of trading and then rose to its 0.70% intraday high in the early afternoon. It then traded in a narrow range and closed with a slightly trimmed gain of 0.64%, reclaiming a bit over half the pre-debate selloff following last week's "no rate hike" rally.

The yield on the 10-year note closed at 1.56%, down three basis points from the previous close.

Here is a snapshot of past five sessions in the S&P 500.

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Here is daily chart of the index. Today's unremarkable trading volume suggests that the presidential debate mini-drama was a bit of a yawner. 

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A Perspective on Drawdowns

Here's a snapshot of selloffs since the 2009 trough.

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Here is a more conventional log-scale chart with drawdowns highlighted. 

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Here is a linear scale version of the same chart with the 50- and 200-day moving averages. 

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A Perspective on Volatility

For a sense of the correlation between the closing price and intraday volatility, the chart below overlays the S&P 500 since 2007 with the intraday price range. We've also included a 20-day moving average to help identify trends in volatility.

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