Even a surprisingly good jobs report wasn't enough to cause this market to break out. The non-farm payroll report surprised analysts with 146k new jobs and reported unemployment dropping to 7.7%. But the labor department calculates this rate unlike any normal person. The unemployment rate dropped because they decided that over 500k people dropped out of the labor force and therefore don't count as unemployed. The so-called U-6 rate of unemployment includes those who have given up looking for work and is over 14%. I guess they don't think we can handle those numbers. The markets opened upward this morning on the basis of this surprising jobs number, but the euphoria was short-lived. Then concerns about the fiscal problems facing this country took center stage. SPX traded as high as $1420 before dropping back to close at $1418, up $4. RUT closed unchanged at $822.Trading volume contracted with 2.3 billion shares of the S&P 500 stocks trading. Trading on the NYSE dropped 2% while trading volume on NASDAQ decreased 6%.

The University of Michigan consumer sentiment survey also poured cold water on the market with a reading of 74.5 for November, down substantially from 82.7 in October.

The intraday high on SPX is near the April highs. SPX is trading in a narrow channel from about $1405 to $1420. Today's close is just above the 50 dma at $1417, so we have resistance coming from both the 50 dma and the highs from earlier this year. Looking the other way, we have support at the 200 dma at $1386. That level was tested last week, but SPX bounced back upward.

For the past several days, RUT has been trading along its 50 dma (at $817 today), but intraday trading in RUT today didn't reach down to the 50 dma. RUT, like SPX, is trading sideways in a pretty narrow range.

My Dec iron condor on RUT remains underwater by about 15% with position delta = -$90 and position theta = +$204.