Yesterday’s market indecision (up and down head fakes ending in a flat finish) gave way to an unambiguous conviction. Our benchmark S&P 500 rallied at the open and rose in a couple of waves to its 1.64% closing gain, just a tick below its intraday high. The popular financial press offered a couple of explanations: The market upgraded its view of the ECB’s stimulus announced yesterday and the apparent recovery in oil prices. West Texas crude is up 6% this week, its fourth week of advance. Likewise this was the fourth week of gains for the S&P 500.

The treasury market reacted accordingly. The yield on the 10-year note closed at 1.98%, up five basis points from the previous close and 10 bps for the week.

Here is a snapshot of past five sessions in the S&P 500.

Here is a weekly chart of the index. Today’s advance logged a 1.11% gain for the week, the fourth consecutive weekly gain the biggest string since the six-week rally that started last September. The largest string before that started in October 2014, well before the record close in May of last year.

A Perspective on Drawdowns

Here’s a snapshot of selloffs since the 2009 trough.

Here is a more conventional log-scale chart with drawdowns highlighted.

Here is a linear scale version of the same chart with the 50- and 200-day moving averages.

A Perspective on Volatility

For a sense of the correlation between the closing price and intraday volatility, the chart below overlays the S&P 500 since 2007 with the intraday price range. We’ve also included a 20-day moving average to help identify trends in volatility.