The markets traded back and forth and largely ended the day unchanged on lower volume. I think many traders are waiting to see the jobs numbers in the morning before committing their capital to this market. SPX lost $2 to close at $1313 while the RUT closed at $821, down $1. Trading volume on the S&P 500 dropped to 2.9 billion shares, just below the 50 dma. Trading was down 10% on the NYSE and down 15% on NASDAQ.

Initial unemployment claims were nearly flat week to week with 422k versus last week's 428k. Continuing unemployment claims were flat at 3.7 million. Factory orders were down 1.2% in April, as compared to March's increase of 3.8%. So the economic data today was not really bad enough to send the market down, but not good enough to trigger a rally either. Tomorrow's jobs report will be closely watched.

My June iron condor on RUT stands at a P/L of +$2,216 with delta = +$11 and theta = +$87. My July iron condor on RUT stands at a P/L of -$280 with delta = -$52 and theta = +$110. Implied volatility on RUT remains pretty high at 24%; otherwise, the July position would have broken into the black by now. OK, start the office pool on the jobs report. Actually, predicting the jobs number may be easier than predicting the market's reaction to the number.