Trading opened down a bit this morning and drifted lower through the morning, but started to recover from noon onward. RUT traded down to $605 for most of the morning and then fell further to $602 before climbing steadily all afternoon to close at $611, unchanged for the day. The SPX traded in similar fashion, but didn't fully recover its losses, closing down $4 at $1072. Trading volume was subdued for an options expiration Friday; it was up 7% on the NYSE but down 9% on NASDAQ. The S&P 500 stocks traded 3.5 billion shares, down from yesterday and below its 50 dma.

RUT's settlement value has not yet been posted, but it seems likely to be around $605, so all of the spreads in my Aug RUT iron condor will expire worthless (550/560 and 590/600 put spreads and 680/690 and 705/715 call spreads). Thus the Aug iron condor gained $923 or 6% on the $15,400 of capital at risk. August was an extremely volatile month; I adjusted the position with long call or put hedges six times. In addition, I rolled spreads up and down four times. These adjustments consumed much of my potential profit. But remember: without those adjustments, we would have been forced to close this position early for either a breakeven or a loss. The adjustments kept us in the position so we could salvage a small profit. This brings my blog trading account up to an overall gain of 18% - not spectatcular, but pretty good given the market volatility we have been enduring. My Sept 530/540 and 740/750 condor stands at a P/L of +$860, delta = +$43 and theta = +$68.

I follow Mark Wolfinger's blog and I recommend it to you. He is a solid No Hype options trader, educator, and author. Today's blog brings up an excellent point about the potential pitfalls of multi-legged options orders - an excellent tip for condor traders. Check it out.