Global markets had a good day today. The Nikkei rose 1.64%, the Shanghai Composite 1.28% and the Euro STOXX 50 was up a respectable 0.79%. In contrast, our benchmark S&P 500 bounced around in a relatively narrow range between its early session intraday high of 0.33% and its mid-afternoon -0.29% low. The index then trended slowly higher to post a tiny 0.07% gain for the day. However, its weekly gain of 3.26% was the biggest since the 3.41% weekly advance in mid-December of last year.

The yield on the 10-year note ended the day at 2.12%, unchanged from the previous close but up 13 bps from last week's close.

Here is a snapshot of past five sessions.

On a daily chart we see that the index is above its 50-day moving average. Volume was light.

A Perspective on Drawdowns

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

For a longer-term perspective, here is a log-scale chart base on daily closes since the all-time high prior to the Great Recession.

Here is the same chart with the 50- and 200-day moving averages. The 50 crossed below the 200 on August 28th.