Conflicting forces resulted in a choppy sideways market today. Weakness in the Euro due to Greece, et al. pushed the dollar upward and that pushed the stock markets downward. But financial issues were being bought early today because many traders felt they were oversold yesterday in the wake of the Goldman news. Then it was reported that the SEC voted 3 to 2 to proceed with the case against Goldman (GS); that encouraged buyers of GS and the financials in general. The mixed vote was considered indicative of a weak case against GS. I believe it also lends evidence to the view that the GS case may be politically motivated to support financial regulatory reform in the congress. RUT traded as low as $702 before closing at $711, down $3. The SPX traded similarly until about 2 pm ET, when some strong buying erased earlier losses and pushed SPX up to a net gain of $5 to close at $1198.

My May RUT condor stands reasonably well balanced at this point (surprisingly after all of the swings back and forth) with 10 contracts of calls at 750/760, 10 contracts of calls at 770/780 and 20 contracts of puts at 650/660. The P/L is -$1,260, with position delta of -$15 and theta = +$112. Tomorrow's markets will be driven by IBM's earnings report this evening and reports from GS, KO, and JNJ in the morning. Expectations are generally positive so even a minor disappointment could drive the market down. But today's strong finish supports the bullish bias that appears to be prevalent.