Mike Santoli’s market notes: Lower highs for the S&P 500, bond yields recede, a speculative game heats up

This is the daily notebook of Mike Santoli, CNBC's senior markets commentator, with ideas about trends, stocks and market statistics.

• Still in the chop zone below the record highs. Yesterday's pop almost retook last week's losses. But as noted fell short of the area that's capped the market for most of the past month.