After yesterday afternoon's severe sell-off, I was surprised to see SPX open in positive ground this morning and then trade up as high as $1899 by noon today, but then the bears came back and started driving it lower. It looked like another repeat of yesterday's trading action. SPX hit its low for the day just thirty minutes before the close. But unlike yesterday, SPX bounced weakly during those last few minutes and avoided another close at the lows of the day. SPX closed at $1878, for a gain of $3. RUT traded more strongly, gaining $12 to close at $1062. The VIX dropped off almost two points to 22.8%. We are far from being out of the woods, but there were some encouraging signs in the trading action today.

Trading volume increased a bit today with 3.0 billion shares of the S&P 500 trading today. Trading volume rose 6% on the NYSE and increased 1% on NASDAQ.

There were no significant economic reports today, but the reasonably positive earnings announcements from the big banks (JPM, C, and WFC) were thought to have contributed to the morning's bullish price action. Goldman Sachs will report Thursday evening.

I was annoyed to see the market bounce back so strongly this morning since I had hedged my November position late yesterday. But that is the nature of the trading game. I compromised and removed half of my hedging options. I was pleased with that compromise as the market traded off this afternoon. These hedge options are costing me money, but hopefully they will allow me to salvage some gains from the November condor position on SPX. I have begun to nibble (emphasis on nibble) at some bullish trades today. Logic tells me we should be near the bottom - but logic is overrated in this game.