As the markets have continued this slow steady climb into 2012, many analysts keep looking for a correction, but the markets just keep rising. Bernanke then throws the markets a huge surprise today by announcing that the Fed will maintain these record low interest rates through 2014 - wow! This is unprecedented. Fed watchers were shocked the last time the FOMC announced a specific time period for interest rates remaining low - why extend that by two more years? Now the question you have to ask is: what does the Fed see down the road that required such a surprising announcement? Do they see more danger from Europe's sovereign debt crisis than the markets have priced into stocks? Do they see a new recession here in the states or just continued slow to minimal economic growth?

SPX began the day in red ink, but broke out to the upside in the early afternoon, closing at $1326, up $11. RUT gained $7 to close at $796. VIX dropped almost another percentage point to 18.3% and spiked down as low as 17.2% intraday. Trading volume jumped up today with 3.4 billion shares of the S&P 500 stocks trading; trading volume rose 16% on the NYSE and rose 20% on NASDAQ. When the Fed gives you free money, you have no choice but to buy.

My Feb RUT condor stands at a P/L of +$1,780 with delta = -$86 and theta = +$102. The 840/850 call spreads remain at about one standard deviation OTM, so no adjustment is necessary - yet.

It appears that we are in one of those classic situations where everyone believes a correction is in order and that the problems in Europe have to contain our market's advance. The market usually finds a way to confound the majority viewpoint...