The markets logged another huge trading range day, so the price volatility records continue to be broken. SPX closed at $1138, down $56 while RUT lost $42 to close at $663. The major indexes didn't close at their lows, but they were not far off the lows of the day. Trading volume spiked back up, with 5.1 billion shares of the S&P 500 trading today. Trading volume rose 63% on the NYSE and rose 45% on NASDAQ. The European debt crisis continues to dominate the news and worry traders. But the Philadelphia Fed survey for August spooked them even more with a drop from +3.2 to -30.7 in one month. Existing home sales also dropped to an annualized rate of 4.67 million. Leading indicators rose 0.5%, providing one glimmer of good news.

Many market observers expected a retest of the recent lows, but I think the strength and range of today's move was unnerving. The lows on SPX were around $1120 and SPX only traded as low as $1131 today. Many stocks are trading at bargain basement levels; will this tempt the bulls to reappear? Or is the fear over European debt too compelling?

My Aug 600/610 put spreads were three standard deviations OTM, and the 750/760 call spreads were even farther OTM, so I allowed both spreads to go into expiration and presumably expire worthless. This will complete my Aug iron condor on RUT with a loss of $356 on 20 contracts or a 2% loss. The Sept position is hedged and stands at a P/L of +$460 with delta = -$12 and theta = +$2. I wonder what surprise the market will bring us tomorrow?