The bulls took charge this morning and didn't surrender control of the market for the entire session. SPX tacked on $16 to close at $1288. RUT wasn't to be outdone as it gained $17 to close at $794. However, this was all on lower trading volume - not a bullish sign. 2.6 billion shares of the S&P 500 traded and volume was flat on the NYSE. Trading volume declined 10% on NASDAQ. Before one gets too carried away with today's strong upward move, a glance at the charts confirms that the major market indexes are still firmly within the bearish downward trend of the last six weeks or so. Another sign of caution was the VIX; it dropped today, but remained above 18%. That suggests many traders remain cautious in spite of this positive move today.

Retail sales dropped 0.2% in May while the PPI gained 0.2%. But the small retail sales numbers didn't seem to bother the markets.

I closed out the June trades from Dr. Duke's Trading Group today. Those recommendations are now up 16% for 2011, easily beating the S&P 500, up 2.5% for the year.

My July iron condor on RUT stands at a P/L of +$1,920 with delta = +$16 and theta = +$80. The Aug iron condor on RUT is also well positioned with a +$560 P/L and delta = -$11 and theta = +$57. So now we watch to see the market can climb out of this hole it has dug for itself.