S&P 500 Snapshot: The Selloff Accelerates

On a day with relatively little economic news US equity markets declined at an accelerating rate, with the benchmark S&P 500 posted its fourth consecutive loss. The index opened at its -0.13% intraday high, plunged sharply and slid to its -1.48% intraday low at the noon hour. It then traded sideways for the most part until some buying in the final 30 minutes trimmed the day’s loss to -0.98%

The yield on the 10-year note closed at 2.34%, up 18 bps from last week’s close and the highest closing yield since mid-July.

Here is a snapshot of past five sessions.

Here is a weekly chart of the index. Trading volume today was unremarkable for the day and week.

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.