The markets opened weak this morning after being disappointed by the latest jobless claims data. New jobless claims fell by 6k to 462k this week, but economists are looking for a number less than 425k to suggest the beginnings of strong job growth. Over 4.6 million are on unemployment benefits, but this number excludes another 5.7 million who have exhausted their 26 weeks of regular benefits and are on extended benefits. Against that backdrop, the bullishness of this market is surprising. Today's trading volume was down 15-20% on the NYSE and the NASDAQ. But after chopping along down and sideways all day, the bulls took over in the last hour of trading and pushed the indexes to gains for the day. After a day of choppy low volume trading, RUT managed to set a new 52 week high at $677, while the SPX matched its high set earlier this year at $1150. So the pace of increase has slowed, but new highs are being set, although with lower volume.

My March and April condors are basically treading water at this point; the losses of the March position are slowing decreasing. The April condor is well hedged with May calls, and that is holding the losses in check. If the market would pull back a bit, we could remove those hedges. Or if the market traded up a bit, we would close and roll our call spreads upward. For now, we are caught in the middle without a move. So we wait and allow time decay to work its magic.