Trading in the markets was very choppy today, but with no net change by the end of the day. Trading volume was down 6-10% on the major exchanges. The CPI came in unchanged this morning, good news for those concerned about the Fed's easy money policy stimulating a round of inflation. One could argue that minimal inflation coupled with low interest rates should be a strong stimulus for business and consequently, the markets. From that perspective, this strong market move upward isn't surprising, but the record high unemployment numbers and Fed red ink gives one pause. The initial jobless claims number came down by 1% to 457k while the number of continuing claims rose a few thousand to 4.579 million. But this number does not include workers who have exhausted the "normal" unemployment benefits and moved into the extended unemployment benefits category. The VIX closed at 16.6%, its lowest level since May of 2008. RUT closed down less than $2 at $682 while the SPX closed unchanged at $1166.

Today's pause in the market's ascent was refreshing for my April iron condor position that now stands at a P/L of -$2,685, delta = -$75 and theta = +$120. The $720 calls have a delta of 13, so this position is relatively unstressed at this point; a couple of weeks of consolidation would be helpful after the damage inflicted by this recent rocket launch of the markets.