One might have expected a bullish day after September's durable orders rose 3.3% (was down 1% in August) and new home sales rose 7% to 307k. But that wasn't to be; the market sold off and the SPX dropped as low as $1172 before rebounding to close down $3 at $1182. RUT dropped $3 to close at $704. So the range bound behavior continues. Neither the bulls or the bears can take charge for long before the other group pulls them back. This underscores what I wrote about yesterday: the markets are waiting on the election results and the FOMC announcement next week. Trading volume was flat to modestly up; trading in the S&P 500 stocks was flat at 3.6 billion shares; Trading volume was up 7% on the NYSE and was up 5% on NASDAQ.

After RUT dropped to $696 today, I removed the Dec call hedges in my Nov iron condor position. Of course, the market bounced back and the Nov $740 call delta is back up to 21. The position delta is a bit higher than I would like at -$107 and theta = +$184. The Dec condor is in near perfect shape with delta = -$14 and theta = +$78. The Dec position is enjoying this range bound action, but the Nov position's call spreads are a bit too close to the fire for comfort. We may have to reapply our hedges tomorrow. We will see what the market brings us.