The last time the NYSE was closed for two days due to weather was for a blizzard in 1888. The markets opened today to very little fanfare and basically traded sideways. I believe we dodged a bullet. If a significant world event had occurred, e.g., if the Israelis had attacked Iran, or more bad news erupted out of the European economic mess, we could have seen a huge crash this morning as panicked traders headed for the exits. But fortunately, all was calm financially while the weather was anything but calm. SPX closed unchanged at $1412 but RUT gained $5 to close at $819. Is the small cap index trying to tell us something? VIX jumped up almost a full point to close at 18.6%.

SPX is treading water at a solid support level around $1410, the range it held most of the month of August. RUT shows a much better defined down trend on the chart from the peak in early September to breaking the 50 dma and bouncing off the 200 dma a few days ago. We can't be sure we are "out of the woods" until both SPX and RUT break out above their 50 dma. But absent any significant news, we may be trading sideways until after the election. This may be great news for you non-directional traders.

My November iron condor on RUT stands at a P/L of +$1,340 with delta = -$14 and theta = +$201. I established new Nov call spreads at 860/870 today to re-balance this position. I had been waiting on a strong market day, but gave up on that. The Chicago PMI came out today basically flat. ADP employment reports tomorrow with the jobs report coming Friday, so we still have the opportunity for some market moving data this week.

Don't let the goblins get you!