Today's close on SPX is almost exactly where we started this year. SPX closed at $1258, up $6. RUT gained $10 to close at $743. Trading volume was up from yesterday but still well below average. Over 2.7 billion shares of the S&P 500 traded today; the 50 dma is 3.5 billion shares. Trading volume was up 19% on the NYSE and was up 22% on NASDAQ. Even though some positive news was coming out of Italy today, European markets traded down; it was only after Europe's markets closed that our markets started trading higher, albeit weakly. 

The Producer price Index (PPI) increased by 0.3% in October while retail sales increased 0.5% in October. The Empire Manufacturing Index edged up into positive territory at 0.61 for Nov (-8.48 in Oct). Although this data wasn't great, it wasn't terrible either. It appears consistent with the conclusion that we are not headed for a double dip recession, but we aren't recovering rapidly either. The bottom line for traders is that we remain in a sideways trading range.

My November iron condor on RUT stands nearly perfectly delta neutral with a P/L of +$1,120 with delta = -$4 and theta = +$406. The Dec condor stands at a P/L of -$140 with delta = -$41 and theta = +$129.

Did you notice AAPL bouncing up today? That was because I closed my AAPL spread for a loss yesterday...