Wow! I keep thinking I will become accustomed to this new level of price volatility we have now been seeing in the markets for many months. Once again today, I was on the verge of major surgery on several positions and then the market does an about face. SPX traded as low as $1860 before turning higher to close for a ten point gain at $1878. RUT behaved similarly, but traded down even more strongly to $1093 before recovering to close a dollar higher at $1109. The VIX rose a bit, but ended the day about a half point lower at 13.4%.

Trading volume spurted higher today with 2.4 billion shares of the S&P 500 trading. Volume rose 12% on the NYSE and increased 33% on NASDAQ. So we had a strong bounce back from the intraday lows on higher volume - a good bullish sign.

The charts are interesting. RUT continues to trade much weaker than SPX. RUT had been treating the 200 dma as support until yesterday when it decisively broke that support level, closing at its low for the day - a very bearish chart. Today's price action was interesting on two fronts: 1) the intraday low was right at the low of the February correction, and 2) today's candlestick is the classic hammer, suggesting a strong support level defined by the end of the lower shadow. This candlestick suggests that the bottom has been found to this latest pull back. The NASDAQ composite was trading similarly, hitting an intraday low about $20 above the long term support level around $4000, but bouncing higher to close at $4068. This recent weakness was almost exclusively driven by RUT and NASDAQ; SPX has held up relatively well. Today, SPX broke the 50 dma at $1865 before bouncing back higher to close at $1878, whereas RUT broke its 200 dma yesterday and remains below that level today even after a strong bounce back higher.

Fortunately, both of my iron condor positions remain profitable after all of these market gyrations.

Sorry I missed my blogs for the past two days. My schedule has been exceptionally busy. My wife is recovering from retinal surgery and that has added a few responsibilities to my list. But the worst of that is behind us. She received an excellent check up today.