The markets basically traded sideways today; the Fed announcement had almost no effect on the markets. I suppose that makes sense; what else can the Fed say? Interest rates have been promised to stay low and the last announcement said they would do everything necessary to support the economy. SPX dropped $4 to close at $1409 and RUT lost $3 to close at $814. Trading volume dropped a bit to 2.6 billion shares of the S&P 500. Trading volume on the NYSE was down 3%, but was up 8% on NASDAQ (Facebook effect?). VIX lost a half point to close at 18.3%.

It is interesting to note that the SPX hit the same intraday low at $1407 that it hit yesterday. Breaking through $1400 would be very bearish. RUT has not really kept up with SPX since June; the trend line has not been as well defined; it took much longer to set new 2012 highs, etc. Now, you can draw a very nice downward trend on RUT and we are sitting on the bottom edge of that trend - not a good sign.

My November iron condor on RUT sits at a net gain of $1,180 or 7%. The 760 put is about one and a half standard deviations OTM with a delta = 14. Now we wait to see if earnings announcements from AMZN and AAPL perk up or depress this tenuous market.