News of the disaster in Japan coupled with ongoing concerns about the Middle East and Libya overwhelmed traders today. The SPX fell to $1286 before beginning to recover in the early afternoon. SPX closed at $1296, down $8 and RUT lost $4 to close at $798. Support on the major indexes continues to hold, but the dips are not being bought aggressively and trading volume is light. Trading in the S&P 500 stocks was up a bit from Friday at 3.4 billion shares but still below the 50 dma. Trading on the NYSE was up 6% while it was down 4% on NASDAQ. The VIX jumped up to 21% today.

My Mar condor on RUT at 730/740 and 875/885 stands at +$3,960 with delta = +$17 and theta = +$129. Both spreads remain OTM by more than two standard deviations, so I will allow them to expire worthless unless that changes. The March condor will likely close out at a maximum gain of 24% with both spreads expiring worthless - very unusual. The Apr RUT condor at 700/710 and 900/910 stands at a P/L of +$480, delta = +$21 and theta = +$73. Both spreads are about one and a half standard deviations OTM, so this condor is well positioned with 31 days to expiration.

Most measures of the stock market's price levels (price/book, price/sales and price/earnings ratios) appear average to below average, so the market doesn't appear to be strongly overbought at this point. I think that is what is holding the markets at support levels as traders worry about a variety of global concerns. So we may continue in this sideways trading range for a while, or some unexpected global event will push the markets off the edge. It's a tough time for directional traders, but a great time for delta neutral traders.