The S&P 500 traded in a relatively narrow 0.60% intraday range yesterday, which is at the 26th percentile of the 224 market days of 2013. The market lost ground for the second day, down 0.20% at the close. Bloomberg, never without an explanation for the market's behavior, has this observation: U.S. Stocks Fall as Best Buy Drops Before Bernanke Speech. I read this headline just as I was finalizing my decision on a replacement model for my worn-out HP inkjet printer, and I'm heading to Best Buy to pick up my new Epson Small-In-One shortly after I post this (and I'm a dedicated Amazon Prime customer).
So yesterday, like Chairman Bernanke and I was doing my part to boost the economy. He'll did the heavy lifting with some carefully crafted verbiage designed as a market emollient, and I did my little part to generate some Best Buy revenue.
Here is a 10-minute look at the week so far.
Volume was 4% below its 50-day moving average.
The S&P 500 is now up 25.36% for 2013 and 0.57% below the all-time closing high of November 15.
For a better sense of how these declines figure into a larger historical context, here's a long-term view of secular bull and bear markets in the S&P Composite since 1871.