The main event for this week's economic news will start tomorrow evening with the Fed's annual symposium at Jackson Hole, Wyoming. This afternoon's preliminary event was the release of the July FOMC minutes. The S&P 500 opened fractionally lower and immediately dropped to its -0.20% intraday low. The index slowly rallied to an early afternoon high, dropped back into the red with the 2 PM FOMC release and then bounced upward to its 0.35% intraday high about 20 minutes before the close. At day's end, the index had trimmed its gain to 0.25% and was only 0.07% below its July 24th record close.
Treasuries fell slightly. The yield on the 10-year Note closed at 2.43%, up 3 bps from yesterday's close.
Here is a 15-minute chart of the past five sessions.
Despite today's FOMC mini-drama, volume remains light as we approach the Fed's Jackson Hole event. This year's featured topic is "Re-Evaluating Labor Market Dynamics." The event program will be made available to the public at 6 PM Mountain Time tomorrow.
A Perspective on Drawdowns
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.
