It seemed as though there were no other stocks trading today. APPL was the topic of almost every analyst on CNBC. Of course, we expected some attention with the earnings announcement this evening, but the announcement of Steve Jobs taking a medical leave added a new layer of questions and speculation. AAPL opened at $330 this morning and traded as low as $326 before bouncing and recovering most of its losses, closing at $341. In after hours trading, AAPL was trading up to $355 after blowing away the earnings and revenue estimates, but was pulling back as I write this blog. After watching AAPL bounce off $326 this morning, I entered my February 310/320 call spread and was already up 17% at the close. GOOG was another stock worth watching today; while the overall market was trading sideways, GOOG gained $15 to close at $640 - very bullish action. I put on a calendar spread to take advantage of GOOG's ramp-up in IV before their earnings announcement Thursday.

The overall market wasn't nearly as exciting with choppy sideways trading most of the day. SPX closed up $2 at $1295 and RUT closed unchanged at $808. Trading volume was up with 4.7 billion shares of the S&P 500 stocks changing hands (the 50 dma = 3.4B). Trading volume increased 9% on the NYSE but was flat on NASDAQ.

My Jan iron condor on SPX is teetering on the brink of a loss for this first month of the new year. This position's theta hit $1363 today which erases a lot of position losses, but the SPX is breathing down the neck of the 1300 calls. The Feb iron condor is in excellent position with a P/L of +$800, delta = -$72, and theta = +$121.

The bears and bulls appear to be basically balanced at this point with neither camp able to take control of the ball. The largest concern appears to be the European sovereign debt issue at this point since most of the economic data here at home is consistently pointing to recovery, albeit a slow recovery. My crystal ball just clouded over, so I'm not sure what we have in store. So I will just trade what the market gives me.