The markets opened up positively this morning but immediately began to sink and all of the major market indexes closed down for the day. SPX closed at $1159, down $18 and RUT also lost $18 to close at $674. Trading volume in the S&P 500 was up a little at 4.1 billion shares; trading was up 7% on the NYSE and was down 4% on NASDAQ. All anyone could talk about today was Bernanke's speech tomorrow and the effect of Steve Jobs leaving Apple. Apple's stock recovered much of its early losses, so it appears the market isn't too concerned about Apple's pipeline of products. The common opinion on the street is that Bernanke won't commit to anything tomorrow. One has to wonder if today's sell off is simply pricing in a "no comment" speech tomorrow. The bigger question is what has been worrying many traders: is this August collapse a severe market correction or the beginning of a bearish trend?

My Sept RUT condor stands at a P/L of -$474 with delta = -$17 and theta = +$44. I had to hedge it again today on the put side just in case Bernanke's comment rattle the market - this is a very nervous market. Rumors send traders running for the exits. Everyone has been so busy speculating about Bernanke's speech, that this may be the classic, "it's baked in the price" situation and we end up with minimal market movement tomorrow. But I hedged my condor anyway - risk management is the key to success, not reading the tea leaves.