The markets appeared to be taking a breather today, but this has been a dangerous market to bet against. SPX is up about 7% just since 12/31 - that is a significant rally. SPX ran as high as $1502 today, but pulled back to close at its open at $1495, for no change on the day. RUT closed up $3 at $900. The SPX chart is a classic doji candlestick, the indicator of indecision, or a balancing of the bulls vs. bears tug of war. Dojis often, but not always, appear just before a trend reversal on the chart. With the strength of this market, I hesitate to predict any reversal; but it does have to at least slow down and trade sideways once in a while. Trading volume was up a bit today with 2.7 billion shares of the S&P 500 stocks trading. Trading on the NYSE was up 7% and volume jumped up 19% on NASDAQ, probably reflecting the carnage in AAPL. I studied AAPL at length yesterday, but just could not convince myself that any trade was even remotely safe. If some of you were willing to place the bearish bet, congratulations. I was tempted to make the classic, "it can't trade lower" bet, but finally decided that the bloom was off this rose, whether it made sense or not.

Initial unemployment claims hit a new low today at 330k claims. This is the lowest report since January, 2008.

The VIX moved up slightly to 12.7%, still very low historically.

My Feb iron condor on RUT stands at break-even with delta = -$95 and theta = +$133.