With little economic news to stir the markets, the three major US indexes closed near the flatline. The Dow and NASDAQ were up slightly (+0.07% and +0.05%, respectively). The S&P 500 closed with a small -0.15% decline after spending the day struggling in an increasingly narrow range between its intraday low of -0.67% to its 0.00% flatline high.
The big economic news comes later this week with Advance Estimate of Q3 GDP on Thursday (more on GDP forecasts here) and the month end cessation the Fed's QE. Actually, more interesting that the rear-view look at GDP will be tomorrow's Durable Goods report and Friday's Personal Consumption and Expenditures, both for September.
The yield on the 10-year Note closed at 2.27%, down 2 bps from Friday's close.
On the daily chart below we see that volume was relatively light, and the index remains below its 50-day price moving average.
A Perspective on Drawdowns
How close were we to an "official" correction, generally defined as a 10% drawdown from a high (based on daily closes)? The chart below incorporates a percent-off-high calculation to illustrate the drawdowns greater than 5% since the trough in 2009.
For a longer-term perspective, here is a pair of charts based on daily closes starting with the all-time high prior to the Great Recession.
