I missed my blog on Friday. I was in West Virginia with my wife as she sold her mother's house and settled the estate. On Friday afternoon, a severe storm came through and all of the electricity went out. In fact, it still wasn't on Saturday morning when we left. 

Today's markets largely traded sideways today and seemed hesitant to add to Friday's huge gains. But then then the floodgates opened in the last hour of trading. This was a little surprising after the ISM manufacturing index reported out at 49.7 for June. This was the first time this index has indicated a contraction in manufacturing (any numbers below 50) since July 2009. Perhaps traders are seeing improved prospects for QE III if we receive more poor economic data? If so, this is strange reasoning: the economy is tanking so I'm bullish because the Fed will bail us out? Really? It will be interesting to see what the jobs report brings us Friday. Fewer jobs being added and higher unemployment numbers will cause the market to rally?

SPX closed at $1366, up $3, but RUT really took off in the last hour today: up $9, closing at $808. Trading volume dropped off to 2.4 billion shares of the S&P 500. Trading on the NYSE dropped 25% and volume dropped 5% on NASDAQ.

VIX fell slightly to 16.8%, so fear has lessened, but certainly has not disappeared. The holidays this week are a bit of a complication. The largest overhanging negative for this market is bad news out of Europe. Whenever our markets are closed and the rest of the world's markets are open, I worry a bit.

My July iron condor on RUT stands at a net gain of $1,920 on 20 contracts with delta = -$61 and theta = +$88. My Aug condor at 650/660 and 850/860 stands at a P/L of -$940 with delta = -$98 and theta = +$89. 

Remember that the exchanges will close early tomorrow and be closed all day Wednesday.