I was surprised by the huge recovery spike upward yesterday. If that was surprising, then today's move back down, wiping out almost half of yesterday's gains was equally surprising. SPX closed down $10 at $1627 and RUT closed at $981, down $8. Last week's jobs report was the most closely watched jobs report in some time. Next week's FOMC announcement and Bernanke's news conference will also be very closely watched. Every word of the announcement will be studied and compared to the last announcement. Bernanke's news conference will be recorded and replayed many times, looking for clues. But this may be similar to people playing the Beatles' records backwards in the sixties, looking for some hidden message. I don't think the message is there.

Bernanke has made it clear that he is looking for significant improvement in unemployment before withdrawing stimulus. If unemployment is improving, it is miniscule at best. In any case, the bottom line is this: 1) I don't expect much movement in the markets between now and Wednesday afternoon, and 2) the latter part of next week could be a wild ride depending on the market's interpretation of the FOMC announcement, rumors, and crowd psychology.

Today's economic data supports the mediocre, muddling along viewpoint of the economy. PPI rose 0.5% in May and industrial production was unchanged. Capacity utilization was flat at 77.6% and the University of Michigan consumer sentiment survey dropped to 82.7 for June from 84.5.

My June condor stands at a net gain of $540 or +3% with delta = -$13 and theta = +$159. I decided not to close the June 1030/1040 call spreads today. They remain not quite two standard deviations OTM. My July position stands at a net gain of $1,040 or +6% with delta = -$3 and theta = +$89 (each position consists of 20 contracts).

Have a nice weekend.