S&P 500 Snapshot: Looking Beyond the Greek Roadblock?

The S&P 500 again dropped at the open on the lack of a Greek solution and hit its intraday low about 40 minutes into the trading day, off 0.63%. But the index rallied for the next 90 minutes and then oscillated through the day, with another rally attempt in the final hour that lost steam in the final fifteen minutes. The index ended the day with a modest 0.20% gain, but that is a 2012 high -- up 7.11% year-to-date and only 1.21% below its interim high at the end of April 2011.

From an intermediate perspective, the S&P 500 is 99.1% above the March 2009 closing low and 13.9% below the nominal all-time high of October 2007.

Below are two charts of the index, with and without the 50 and 200-day moving averages.





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.

For a bit of international flavor, here's a chart series that includes an overlay of the S&P 500, the Dow Crash of 1929 and Great Depression, and the so-called L-shaped "recovery" of the Nikkei 225. I update these weekly.

These charts are not intended as a forecast but rather as a way to study the current market in relation to historic market cycles.