The last two days have erased almost all of those ecstatic gains from Wednesday. It was as though traders reassessed their initial conclusions after Bernanke's news conference on Wednesday afternoon and decided that Bernanke had it right - the economic data are weak and don't warrant pulling stimulus out of the economy. SPX closed down $12 at $1710 while RUT gave back $2, closing at $1073. This returns SPX to the previous high for the year at $1710. This will be a pivotal point to watch Monday - which way will it tip? Volatility decreased earlier today, down as far as 12.5%, but rose to close at 13.1%, still a relatively low level of volatility. Trading volume was higher on this expiration Friday with 3.0 billion shares of the S&P 500 stocks trading. Trading on the NYSE increased 82% and increased 35% on NASDAQ.

No substantive economic data was released today, but comments from at least two different Federal Reserve presidents seemed to revive the idea of the FOMC beginning tapering as early as October. Perhaps that drove the markets lower, or perhaps the heated rhetoric out of Washington was responsible. Why is it that our politicians can't address real economic issues like adults and instead resort to name calling and accusations? One of our candidates for governor in Illinois is calling for term limits to completely turn over our state legislature - perhaps that would be good for Congress as well.

SPX settled at $1723.89 today and RUT settled at $1078.65. So my September iron condor positions expired worthless for a net gain of 15.2%, bringing the total returns for Flying With The Condor™ in 2013 to 7.9%.

Have a pleasant weekend.