Trading was choppy and mostly sideways in the markets today. But the Russell 2000 Index pulled away in the last two hours of trading to post a modest gain for the day, leaving the other indexes mostly flat. Trading volume was up 7% on the NYSE, but jumped 29% on NASDAQ due to AAPL's strong earnings announcement plus Visa's acquisition of Cybersource. About five billion shares of the S&P 500 traded today, up from yesterday and still above the 50 day moving average. The SPX dropped below $1200 for a brief time today but rebounded to erase the earlier losses and close at $1206, up less than a dollar for the day. RUT touched down as low as $720 but rebounded to close up almost $5 at $726.

My May RUT condor stands at a P/L of -$720 with a position delta of -$7 and theta = +$76. My call spreads are split between 750/760 and 770/780. While the 750/760 spreads are under considerable pressure, the other call spreads plus a couple of June 750 calls are holding this position at a reasonable level of risk. The bullish strength of this market continues unabated (today's evidence was SPX being bought up shortly after touching 1200), but the slope of the curve is diminishing. I am beginning to be a little concerned about the bullish headlines and magazine covers. When everyone is convinced the market is going up, is often just before the correction. Don't forget the free webinar tomorrow evening.