The S&P futures were down about $30 when I first looked at them this morning. SPX opened at $1874, which was surprisingly only a couple of dollars lower than yesterday's close, but then the wild ride began. SPX dropped about $36 in the next few minutes, appeared to recover but then began a slow decline to its low for the day at $1821 around 1:30 pm ET. The buying dominated the rest of the day's trading with SPX closing at $1862, down $15. It is surprising to see that SPX only lost $15 when all of the dust settled. RUT actually closed with a gain of $11 at $1072. RUT's chart seems to suggest it is forming a bottom around $1050; you have to go back to the pull back in October of 2013 to match that price. RUT's weakness led this market down. Is RUT leading the bounce?

As expected in a market like we had today, VIX spiked up over 31%, but settled down to close at 26.2%. Trading volume shot through the roof with over four billion shares of the S&P 500 trading today. Trading volume rose 25% on the NYSE and rose 24% on NASDAQ. Is this a sign of the classic "capitulation"?

The minutes from the last FOMC meeting were released this afternoon. Maybe that led to the buying we saw after 2 pm ET. Retail sales declined 0.3% in September , a big change from the 0.6% increase in August. PPI was flat last month and reported a decline of 0.1% for September. The Empire manufacturing survey came in at 6.2 for October, a dramatic shift downward from last month's 27.5 - this almost looks like a data error.

At the bottom of the market this afternoon, my put hedges were doing their job and my SPX Nov condor position was at break-even. But we have some spurious prices posted at the close for SPX, so don't be surprised if your broker statement looks a bit weird. My Nov SPX condor is positioned at 1810/1820 and 2090/2100. The SPX Nov 2090 calls were posted with a closing ask price of $9.60. So my call spread is being shown as losing $370 per contract! That short call is $228 OTM!!

What a day!