SPX opened at the neutral line this morning, but then slow, but steady, selling started that did not end until about 20 minutes before the close when it hit its low for the day. SPX dropped off $17 to close at $1554. RUT declined even more, percentage-wise, with a close at $919, down $16. To my surprise, the VIX didn't pop up as much as I would have expected, closing at 14.2%, up about one and a half points.

Trading volume jumped up today with 2.7 billion shares in the S&P 500 stocks, finally breaking through the 50 dma. Trading on the NYSE jumped 23% and volume increased 15% on NASDAQ.

Before the market opened this morning, ADP reported an increase of 158k private sector jobs in March, down from last month's 237k and down significantly from analyst estimates around 200k. This report has already promptly one economist to lower his estimates for Friday's jobs report. The ISM Services Index reported out at 54.4 for March, down from last month's 56.0. Some financial headlines are blaming the ADP report for today's market slide, but the market didn't really react at the open; it almost seems like traders required several hours to slowly decide to lessen their market exposure. Concerns over North Korea's antics are another possibility, but South Korean stocks seem to be holding up reasonably well. Maybe all of the talk about a correction had traders nervous and it didn't take much to get the selling ball rolling.

The RUT chart looks pretty negative. The candlestick pattern of the past three sessions is known as "Three Black Crows" - each succeeding candlestick starts within the body of the previous candlestick and trades lower. This indicator suggests we are headed lower. RUT broke support at $940 yesterday and broke through support at $935 today. RUT's next support level is around $910 and then $895.

I bought some ATM puts to protect my positions today. I will likely leave them in place through Friday morning (post jobs report).