The Dow was the only major index to post a gain today; the broader indexes all posted small losses. Markets opened up slightly down, attempted to move into positive territory by late morning, but then chopped sideways and lower the rest of the day. SPX closed down $4 at $1325 and RUT closed at $814, down $4 on the day. It appeared the markets were looking for something new from Bernanke's testimony before Congress, but nothing new was revealed, and it didn't appear to have much of an effect on the markets. Trading volume was up slightly with 3.1 billion shares of the S&P 500 trading today; this is still well below the 50 dma at 3.5 billion shares. Trading on the NYSE was up 6% and volume was up 6% on NASDAQ as well. Volatility jumped at the open but settled down to close under 16% at the close.

My Mar condor on RUT stands at a small gain of $140 with a position delta of -$37 and position theta = +$97. Is the market just pausing a bit or is the correction around the corner? It seems like too many analysts are preaching "correction" for that to actually occur. I trade both directionally and non-directionally, but one big advantage of non-directional trading is the freedom from predicting the market. That's a tough business.