Friday I predicted: "next week is likely to be slow and lacking clear direction, given the holiday and fewer people on the trading floors". Well, so much for that prediction! Today's markets were strong from the start, pulled back late in the day, but then resumed their upward gains into the close. Even more surprising, this stock market surge came in the face of a much stronger dollar, breaking recent tendencies for the market to trade inversely to the dollar. RUT gained over $8 to close at $619 and the SPX gained almost $12 to close at $1114. Tomorrow brings the GDP and existing home sales numbers. If I were venturing a prediction, I would expect the market to give back some of today's gains tomorrow - at least, that has been the pattern for the past six weeks or so. But positive economic news tomorrow morning may trigger additional buying.

My iron condors on RUT are performing well: the Jan 510/520 and 650/660 condor is now up $1,920 with position delta = -$116 and theta = +$113. The short term Jan iron condor at 570/580 and 630/640 stands at a P/L of +$200, delta = -$80 and theta = +$76. Neither condor is near any adjustment triggers.