Today's markets were steadily positive all day, but the volume dropped dramatically. Perhaps the July 4th weekend holiday has started early. SPX gained $12 to close at $1280 while RUT closed at $805 for a $7 gain. Trading in the S&P 500 dropped to 2.5 billion shares, well below the 50dma. Trading on the NYSE dropped 32% and trading volume was down 40% on NASDAQ. In fairness, some of the volume Friday was due to rebalancing the Russell indexes, but I think this decline was more than that alone. In any case, this decline in volume forces us to look at the gains today with some suspicion. One must conclude that we remain in a downtrend; at best, we are consolidating sideways.

My July iron condor on RUT is just treading water and making money these days with a net P/L of +$2,780 and position delta = +$9 and theta = +$84. The 880/890 call spreads are nearly two standard deviations OTM and the 700/710 put spreads are over two standard deviations OTM. So this position is pretty safe at this point. My Aug iron condor is up $600 with delta = -$26 and theta = +$73.

I will be hosting a free webinar this Wednesday evening on "Adjusting the Iron Condor in Bear Markets". Click the Coming Events tab to learn more and register for the webinar.