The markets slowed a bit today, but not much. SPX opened higher this morning and then pulled back into negative territory; but by late morning, it had moved into positive gains and stayed there the rest of the day. SPX gained $2 to close at $1683. RUT continues to lead the markets and today was no exception. RUT gapped open this morning and gained $7 to close at $1043 for a new all-time high. Trading volume fell off from Friday with only 1.8 billion shares of the S&P 500 trading today. Trading volume declined 11% on the NYSE and also declined 7% on NASDAQ.

We heard some positive economic news today and that may have helped push markets higher. Retail sales for June increased 0.4% and the Empire manufacturing survey increased to 9.5 from the previous month's 7.8. The FOMC Beige Book comes out on Wednesday and Bernanke testifies before Congress Wednesday and Thursday, so we might expect some market volatility around those events.

I chose to allow some more time decay to assist my July 1060/1070 call spreads and held them open over the weekend,  but I will close those spreads soon. The July condor position on RUT stands at a gain of +6% with position delta = -$221 and position theta is a whopping +$801. IBM announces earnings Wednesday after the close; that announcement will be watched carefully as an indicator of the economy's health.