Markets were a bit weak today, but managed to tack on small gains. SPX gained $3 to close at $1213 and RUT closed at $728, up $3. Trading volume increased a bit with 3.1 billion shares of the S&P 500 trading, still below the 50 dma at 3.6B; trading volume was up 13% on the NYSE and was up 15% on NASDAQ. The Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index plunged to 44.5, the lowest reading since April of 2009. But that didn't seem to weigh on the markets very much. The FOMC minutes didn't seem to make much of an impact on trading, but the extraordinary disagreement within the committee was widely discussed.

Both SPX and RUT have now closed solidly above the highs reached a couple of weeks ago as the markets last rallied, before crashing down to re-test the early August lows. But we are still a long ways from a recovery. But so far, the market is showing reasonable resilience to bad news such as today's consumer confidence data.

My Sept iron condor stands at a P/L of -$876 with delta = -$92 and theta = +$205. The Oct condor is hedged and stands at a P/L of -$2900 with delta = -$6 and theta = +$39.