The markets ran up strongly first thing this morning but were quickly pulled back by the bears and traded along the neutral line most of the day. But the last hour was all selling with the indexes closing at or near their lows for the day. The SPX ran as high as $1081, but closed down $4 at $1067. RUT behaved similarly, running up to $618 before closing at $603, down $8. Trading volume was down across the board, with a 24% decline on the NYSE and a 13% decline on NASDAQ. The S&P 500 stocks traded under three billion shares, well under Friday's volume and below the 50 day moving average.

There was no economic news to drive the market either way today. Some M&A news appeared to boost the market this morning, but it wasn't sufficient to hold the intraday highs. It seems as though the market is afflicted with a general malaise or fear that leads to profit taking whenever stocks trade higher. The low trading volume suggests this sell off is the result of short term trading in and out, rather than a general institutional exit. But the danger of this market is that it won't take much bad news to set off a serious drop.

My Sept iron condor on RUT stands at a P/L of +$740 with a position delta of +$56 and position theta of +$72 on 20 contracts. I plan to initiate my Oct condors later this week.