The markets pulled back a bit today, but still held recent highs. SPX closed down $5 at $1589. RUT fell $4 to $943. The high in 2000 was about $1552 and then it peaked at $1576 in 2007. So the question on many technical analysts' minds is: Are we headed off into brand new highs, or is this market going to pull back before continuing a bullish run? Some analysts point to the history of bear markets lasting 15 to 17 years, so they see this market pulling back before heading to new highs down the road. What may be different now is the huge Fed presence; that may keep this bull healthy much longer than might be expected based on history. But that makes me worry about the hangover after the overindulgence.

Trading volume was mixed with a decline in the volume of the S&P 500 at 2.2 billion shares; trading volume rose 5% on the NYSE, but dropped 20% on NASDAQ. VIX remained flat at 12.1%.

Retail sales came in lower by 0.4% in March, but the PPI dropped 0.6%, calming inflation fears. Consumer sentiment dropped to 72.3 from last month's 78.6. All in all, today's economic data were not impressive.

I applied my Two Sigma Rule to the April 880/890 put spreads and the Apr 990/1000 call spreads. Both were about 2.5 standard deviations OTM, which should be quite safe at this point. But this market worries me, so I closed the put spreads today. With the expiration of the call spreads next week, that will close out the April iron condor position at a loss of 2%. I could have allowed the put spreads to expire worthless next week and that would have resulted in a result roughly at break-even, but I worry about some bad news coming out over the weekend and making it more expensive to get out of those puts next week. I'm probably being too cautious, but I will sleep better this way. My May condor is doing well with a P/L of +$1,280 (+7%) and position delta of -$12 and position theta of +$76.

Enjoy your weekend. The way things look, I won't be working in the yard this weekend. Spring hasn't come to Chicago yet.