Markets took a pause today, but the bulls remain very much in control of this market. The bears are left trying to argue that the markets are over valued. That is always a tough argument. Consider Tesla. By most any financial measure the stock has been and continues to be over valued, but it continues to trade higher. Tesla is showing a little weakness lately, but it remains over $170/share. The bulls took a little bit of a pause today, but the bull trend remains strong. SPX closed unchanged at $1745 and RUT dropped $2 to close at $1112. Volatility is flat with VIX closing at 13.2%, unchanged on the day. Trading volume dropped back with two billion shares of the S&P 500 trading. Volume on the NYSE decreased 23% and trading dropped 9% on NASDAQ.

New home sales came in at 5.29 million for September, down a bit from the previous report of 5.39 million units. It is one more report of the real estate market holding its own, if not rising.

My Nov iron condor on SPX at 1650/1660 and 1800/1810 has been hedged once and repositioned, so it is currently underwater with a P/L of -$3,260 or -16% with position delta = -$27 and position theta = +$126 on 20 contracts.

My trading group entered the following trade on Netflix today with the diagonal call spread, Jan14/Nov $350/$400. I also bought the Nov $300 put just in case the earnings announcement went south. That gave us a position where we were only exposed to a loss of 2-3% if NFLX fell out of bed, but we still have a bullish position if the stock continues its run. As I write this blog, NFLX is trading around $390, so I will sell the put protection tomorrow and allow the spread to profit as NFLX trades upward. Check out Dr. Duke's Trading Group if you would like to learn more about using options conservatively.