Global markets had a good day today. The Nikkei rose 1.0% and the Euro STOXX 50 was up a comparable 0.93%. In contrast, our benchmark S&P 500 vacillated at the open, traded in the shallow red and then sold off to its -0.76% mid-day low. It spent the rest of the day grinding in a narrow range above the intraday low and closed with a trimmed loss of -0.36%, snapping its 5-day rally. The index is now down 3.84% for the year and 7.08% off its record close on May 21.

The yield on the 10-year note ended the day at 2.05%, down 2 bps from the previous close.

Here is a snapshot of past five sessions.

On a daily chart we see that today's high was about 12 points below the index's 50-day moving average. Volume was average.

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.