A flurry of end of the quarter trading pushed volume higher today but trading was largely sideways for the day. The SPX closed the day down $4 at $1141 while the RUT lost less than $2 to close at $676. The markets traded higher this morning on the basis of some favorable economic reports. Initial unemployment claims dropped 16k to 453k while the continuing unemployment claims dropped 83k to 4.46 million. The Chicago PMI rose to 60.4 from last month's 56.7 and the revised estimate of second quarter GDP rose a bit to 1.7% from 1.6%. Tradng volume was up across the board with an 18% increase on the NYSE and a 17% increase on NASDAQ. Trading in the S&P 500 stocks rose above the 50 dma to 3.7 billion shares.

I closed the Nov hedge options in my Oct iron condor on RUT this morning. This position is now in salvage mode; it will end in a small loss at best. The current Greeks are excellent with delta = -$9 and theta = +$229. The Nov condor stands at a P/L of -$1,160 with delta = -$60 and theta = +$85. The delta of the $740 calls pulled back to 16 today so there was no need to adjust this position as yet.