The markets appeared to do their best to trade down today, but finally traded upward for significant gains. SPX gained $20 to close at $1144 and RUT closed at $658, up $9 on the day. Trading volume dropped down a bit from yesterday with 4.2 billion shares of the S&P 500, but this remains above the 50 dma at 4.0B. Trading volume on the NYSE was down 28% and similarly, trading was down 18% on NASDAQ. The VIX dropped to 38% today, approximately in the middle of its range of 30% to 48% since early August. SPX broke through resistance at $1120 yesterday and tested that earlier today before trading higher. A lot of damage has been done since early August; the SPX chart is strongly trending downward at this point. It will require a break above the 50 dma at $1184 before anyone can even begin to hope for a bullish trend.

The ISM Services Index reported at 53.0 for September, down slightly from the August value of 53.3. This was the classic, "not bad news, but not good news either" report. It seems to support the idea that the economy isn't worsening rapidly, but it certainly isn't roaring back to life either. ADP reported 91 thousand new private payroll jobs, which isn't a bad number, but again, nothing to write home about either. This may be a precursor to Friday's Non-Farms Payroll Report.

I closed the Oct 500/510 put spreads on my Oct iron condor on RUT and also opened the Oct 740/750 call spreads. I will look for an opportunity tomorrow to roll my put spreads upward. My Nov iron condor on RUT stands at 490/500 and 780/790 with a P/L of +$440 with position delta = -$49 and position theta = +$137.