The S&P 500 fell 1.6% last week, closing out a rocky stretch that saw the index dip below a key technical level. The benchmark index now sits 2.0% below its record close from June 2nd, 2026. Despite the weekly loss, it remains up 8.9% year-to-date, while the equal-weight version has gained 11.4% over the same period.
The index has been trading below its 50-day moving average since July 17th, 2026. That is a signal some traders watch closely for short-term momentum shifts. It remains above its 200-day moving average, a level it has held since April 8th, 2026. The 50-day average itself has been above the 200-day average since July 1st, 2025 — a configuration often called a “golden cross” that tends to suggest longer-term upward trends are intact, even when shorter-term moves turn negative.
How drawdowns compare to past selloffs
The current pullback looks modest compared to historical crashes. On October 9th, 2007, the S&P 500 peaked at 1,565.15. Seventeen months later, during the Global Financial Crisis, it had dropped roughly 57% to a close of 676.53 on March 9th, 2009. It took more than five years for the index to reclaim its old high, finally closing at 1,569.19 on March 28th, 2013.
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Excluding the 2008 financial crisis, the chart of post-2009 performance shows a different picture. The 2022 selloff stands out as the most significant downturn in that period, though it was far shallower than the 2007-2009 collapse.
For investors used to the fast recoveries of 2020 and 2023, the current environment feels different. Being below the 50-day average for several weeks — rather than a day or two — suggests the market may be settling into a slower rhythm, where gains come harder and pullbacks last longer. That does not predict a crash, but it does mean the easy upward drift of early 2026 has given way to something choppier.
Volatility and the intraday swings
Intraday volatility has been notable but not extreme. On April 9th, 2025, the index posted its largest single-day price swing — 10.77% from low to high — since December 24th, 2018, when the range hit 19.10%. Over the past 20 trading days, the average daily range from intraday low to high has been 0.98%.
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The S&P 500 is a market-cap-weighted index of roughly 500 large U.S. companies across 11 sectors. The S&P 500 Equal Weight Index holds the same stocks but gives each company the same fixed weight. So far this year, the equal-weight version has outperformed the cap-weighted version by 2.5 percentage points.
ETFs tied to the S&P 500 include the iShares Core S&P 500 ETF (IVV), SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (SPY), Vanguard S&P 500 ETF (VOO), SPDR Portfolio S&P 500 ETF (SPYM), and the Invesco S&P 500 Equal Weight ETF (RSP).
