The occasional downright silliness of financial news was illustrated well today as the various CNBC hosts kept worrying about whether the twenty week streak of positive market increases on Tuesdays might end today - really? And in another breath we would ridicule the natives in darkest Africa for being afraid of a mirror.

SPX opened the day positively, but soon traded downward. FOMC member Esther George's speech was released sometime during the day after the market had already turned down, but her comments advocating cessation of the Fed QE programs seemed to drive markets lower. But much of those losses were recovered before the close. SPX closed at $1631, down $9 and RUT also lost $9 to close at $982. Trading volume decreased with 2.5 billion shares of the S&P 500 stocks trading. Trading volume on the NYSE decreased 8% and volume was off 10% on NASDAQ. The VIX closed unchanged at 16.3% - not too high but not too low either.

So far, SPX is holding support in the $1630-$1635 area. If it breaks through to the downside, watch the next support level at $1600, strengthened by the 50 dma at $1603.

The reaction to George's comments does illustrate the fear permeating this market that the Fed's removal of stimulus will tank the markets. There is a clear belief that one needs to be the first to sell and preserve all of these gains of the bull market of the past six months the minute the Fed begins to pull out or even talks about pulling out. It also underscores how difficult it is to predict the market's reaction to the jobs number Friday morning. A strong number may cause the market to sell off and a weak number may be tolerated.

My June condor stands at a P/L of -$1,420 with delta = -$54 and theta = +$215. As we head into the last couple of weeks of this trade, the time decay is starting to build nicely. The call spreads are outside of one standard deviation OTM and the put spreads are over two standard deviations OTM. We may be able to salvage a small gain from this position in spite of several adjustments and hedges, but it is early to count those chickens.