Some preliminary data from Europe and China suggest those economies may be slowing. When you add the European sovereign debt concerns, you get a market full of worries and understandably cautious about buying. These concerns also drove the dollar higher and this traditionally pulls the stock markets downward. The markets gapped down at the open and traded sideways from there. The major indexes closed off their lows for the day, but not by much. SPX dropped $16 to close at $1317 and RUT closed at $814, down $15. Trading volume was down; only 2.5 billion shares of the S&P 500 traded today, well below the 50 dma. Trading on the NYSE was down 14% and trading volume on the NASDAQ was up 1%.

If one draws the trend lines on the SPX chart for the down trend since May 2, today's action puts us either on or very close to that lower trend line. So we appear to be at the tipping point. If the broad markets dive lower tomorrow, we may be defining a new bearish trend lower. On the other hand, we will need some significant upward movement to decisively break-out of this downward trend. On SPX, this will require a close above $1345, $28 higher.

All of the May options expired worthless. My June RUT condor stands at a P/L of +$2,056 with delta = $0.50 and theta = +$54. I believe this theta/delta ratio sets a personal high - I have never had a position delta so close to zero. So now I watch to see if this market is headed lower, or will we just muddle sideways?