The tug of war between the bulls and the bears appears to be pretty well balanced. Today's market action reinforced that conclusion with SPX hitting a high of $1884 within a few minutes of the open this morning - a new high for the year. But the bulls couldn't hold that high for long. SPX has slowly traded off all day to close at $1866, down $6 on the day. RUT traded to its intraday high at $1208 later in the morning, but this was short of intraday highs set in early March. RUT also traded off all afternoon, closing down $5 at $1194. Trading volume was higher today, not unusual for a triple witching expiration Friday. Preliminary numbers put NYSE volume up by 91% and NASDAQ up by 34%. Volatility rose a half point with VIX closing at 15.0%.

There was no economic news to push stocks one way or the other today, and that may have contributed to today's largely sideways to slightly weaker trading.

I closed the RUT 1200/1210 call spreads in my March iron condor yesterday; assuming the 1120/1130 put spreads expire worthless this weekend, that will net out to a 40% loss for March - ouch! But my RUT April 1270/1280 call spreads have already gained 11%; I am waiting for a good opportunity to enter the balancing Apr put spreads and further boost the income from this position.

I am writing this blog early today because I have to pick up my wife from the airport later. So I do not have the trading volume for the S&P 500 stocks and the settlement value for RUT has not yet been posted. SPX settled at $1893.30. RUT probably settled near $1200 but we'll see.

Enjoy your weekend.