Trading volume jumped up significantly today, but the overall market averages didn't change too much by the end of the day. SPX opened up well into the red this morning, but recovered early and traded sideways for small losses throughout the day. Then, in the last 15 minutes, it barely broke into the black, closing up one dollar at $1322. RUT traded similarly, but moved back into positive territory this morning and stayed there all day, closing up $3 at $813. CSCO's disappointing earnings announcement last evening certainly didn't help the tech stocks today; trading on the NASDAQ was up 31%. Trading in the S&P 500 was also up significantly, jumping to 3.8 billion shares, well above the 50 dma. Trading volume was up 10% on the NYSE. News out of Egypt near the close of trading regarding Mubarak's continued role in the government created some volatility as the market closed and it is unclear how that may affect the open in the morning as that news is analyzed. News reports on the reaction of the Egyptian people will be a critical part of that analysis. It is hard to predict the effect on the markets.

Initial unemployment claims fell dramatically to 383k, down from last week's 419k and well below the expectations of 410k. Continuing unemployment claims also dropped to 3.88 million from last week's 3.93 million. But that positive news didn't appear to move the markets.

My Mar iron condor stands at a P/L of +$200, delta = -$43 and theta = +$94. The call spreads are greater than one standard deviation OTM and the put spreads are over two standard deviations OTM, so this condor is in a pretty good position.