The markets appeared to be treading water today as they waited on Bernanke's speech this afternoon (nothing new there), and then took some risk off the table in anticipation of the market's reaction tomorrow morning to Obama's speech this evening. SPX closed at $1186, down $13 and RUT lost $15 to close at $695. Trading volume was up a bit from yesterday at 3.3 billion shares of the S&P 500, but remained below the 50 dma. Trading on the NYSE was up 1% while trading volume on NASDAQ rose 10%. Markets tried to rise this morning but just could not hold the gains as traders slowly sold off all afternoon.

It is hard to anticipate what may ultimately move this market one way or the other. Personally, I doubt Obama's speech will be the tipping event. Traders are looking for some free enterprise rhetoric but this administration doesn't trust free markets. We may be stuck in this tenuous trading range for a while.

My two iron condors on RUT stand at a P/L of +$1564, with delta = +$27 and theta = +$133, and a P/L = +$3020 with delta = +$9 and theta = +$69. I will apply my Two Sigma Rule to these positions tomorrow and possibly close some of the spreads. The Oct condor is hedged and stands at a P/L of -$2100 with delta = -$7 and theta = +$61.