Papandreou's announcement that he would seek a public referendum on the EU debt bailout plan sent markets tumbling both in Europe and here. Markets recovered somewhat as the day wore on. There appear to be two schools of thought: 1) Greek voters turn the rescue plan down and a global meltdown of banking follows, or 2) The EU tosses Greece out of the EU and Greece defaults and the markets have already priced that in. I am inclined toward the latter opinion, but I am certainly not a global banking expert.  SPX lost $35 to close at $1218, while RUT lost $27 to close at $714. The VIX popped up as high as 38% before settling back to 35%, for a five point jump from yesterday's close.

The area of about $1220 to $1230 is a congested support level first established back in early September after the August crash. The SPX struggled in that area for several days recently before breaking out to the upside. So far, that area of support is holding, but tomorrow may be a different day.

The ISM manufacturing index came out for October at 50.8, essentially flat from the previous month's 51.6. But the markets were completely focused on Europe and secondarily on the collapse of MF Global.

I removed the hedge on my Nov condor this morning. The spike upward in IV has hurt the P/L on both of the condor positions, but the position Greeks are actually pretty good. The Nov condor stands at a P/L of -$4,100 for 20 contracts with delta = +$8 and theta = +$244. The Nov 660/670 put spreads remain about one standard deviation OTM. The Dec condor stands at P/L = -$1020 with delta = -$19 and theta = +$95.

All eyes on Europe... again.