Initial unemployment claims of 484k were reported before the open this morning; while this wasn't much higher than last week's 482k, the market was expecting something more like 465k. This data, together with the fear generated by yesterday's market plunge, was sufficient to create a bout of selling as the market opened. But within a couple of hours, the markets were trading higher than the open; this oscillated back and forth all day, but the major indexes recovered most of their losses before the end of the day. RUT dropped as low as $611 early on, but closed at $617, off $3 for the day. SPX traded similarly, trading as low as $1077 before closing at $1084, down $6. Trading volume dropped off from yesterday with a 9% drop on the NYSE and a 1% increase on NASDAQ. About 3.6 billion shares of the S&P 500 stocks traded, down about 10% from yesterday. So today was still a bearish day on the street and now the SPX is firmly underneath the 200 day moving average which will likely serve as resistance to any bullish rallies. However, today's intraday recovery and the decrease in trading volume are encouraging me that the bottom isn't falling out of the market, but time will tell. The talk of a double dip is raging and may become a self-fulfilling prophecy if a crucial data report or other event occurs in the next few days.

As RUT bounced back this morning, I sold the Aug $630 puts hedging my Aug RUT iron condor for a small profit. This was more aggressive than I would normally play the trade. My Aug position has been hammered by adjustments to both the up side and the bottom side; adjustments usually reduce the profit potential of one's position, but allow the trader to stay in the trade and salvage a large proportion of the position's potential gains. In this case, I have had so many adjustments, I am running out of potential gains to salvage. Thus, I chose to remove this most recent hedge prematurely. If I can nurse this position though the weekend, I should be able to squeeze out a small gain. The Aug position now stands at a P/L of -$1657, delta = +$95 and theta = +$249. The Sept 530/540 and 740/750 RUT iron condor stands at a P/L of +$340, delta = +$36 and theta = +$67. So now we wait and see if we go lower.