The markets traded largely sideways today but managed some small gains at the end of it all. The SPX closed up $5 at $1228 while RUT closed essentially unchanged at $764. Trading volume was down across the board with 3.8 billion shares of the S&P 500 stocks trading, down nearly to the 50 dma. Trading was down 29% on the NYSE and down 7% on NASDAQ. SPX appears unable to break through $1230 to new highs, but, just as importantly, the bears have been unable to pull the S&P 500 down either. RUT has outperformed the blue chips all year, reaching new 2010 highs over the past several trading days. But even RUT is showing signs of slowing down the past two days, trading essentially flat yesterday and today. Most economic data has been consistently showing a slow but steady recovery, but global economic woes appear to still have the street worried. Even a compromise on taxes did little to move this market.

I closed the 790/800 call spreads of my Dec iron condor on RUT today; I will allow the 660/670 put spreads to expire worthless; as they are almost four standard deviations OTM, that appears to be a safe bet. Assuming those spreads expire worthless, this position gained $1,660 on 20 contracts or 10% on capital at risk. The Jan condor on RUT continues to run right along the edge of adjustment with a P/L of -$1539, delta = -$90 and theta = +$92. The delta of the 1280 calls is 20. The theta/delta ratio of about 1:1 tells the story.