Virtually everyone in this country is focused on the election today. Will the results move this market? The market continues to chop sideways; the bulls view it as a consolidation phase in a larger bull market trend. The bears portray the past few weeks as the beginning of a new downward market trend. The market's current direction is clearly at a tipping point. I really don't know what effect, if any, this election may have on the markets. A true free market capitalist (there aren't many of us left) would view a win by conservatives as positive (sometimes "conservative" has nothing to do with the party; I voted for a democrat today who is trying to reform our corrupt county government).  But Wall Street has been addicted to the same government hand-outs that blind many voters. The Fed has been propping up this market for several years now. So it wouldn't be surprising to see the market sell off at the prospects of giving up that support. Living independently is always difficult and it will always be tempting to invite government to solve our problems. But you pay for that help with a loss of your freedom. There is a thinly disguised hook in that government program.  Remember when states were free to specify the speed limits on their highways?

The markets opened with little fanfare today, but rallied pretty strongly before hitting resistance. SPX closed $11 higher at $1428 after moving as high as $1433. RUT traded upward $6 to close at $826. Trading volume was rather low yesterday, and by that comparison, trading volume bounced upward today, but the 2.5 billion shares of the S&P 500 stocks that traded today just moved us back up to the 50 dma. Trading volume increased 18% on the NYSE and increased 19% on NASDAQ. Economic news was sparse today. The VIX dropped almost one percentage point to close at 17.6% - still a relatively high number and another measure to suggest we are at the tipping point.

My November iron condor position on RUT is up $2,060 (+13%) with delta = -$60 and theta = +$236. My Dec condor is up $560 (+3%) with delta = -$52 and theta = +$79.

If you haven't exercised your responsibility to vote yet, get to it. In spite of what I perceive as the erosion of our freedoms, this remains the only nation in the world where we can live as free as we do here. Voting is a privilege many people don't have.