The Bank of Japan announced stimulus measures for their economy last evening and our markets gapped open strongly this morning and traded steadily higher all day. SPX traded up by $23 to close at $2018 and RUT tacked on $18 to close at $1174. SPX closed at its high for the day. And this all occurred on higher trading volume with 2.5 billion shares of the S&P 500 stocks trading. Trading increased 22% on the NYSE and increased 18% on NASDAQ. Who knew the Bank of Japan held such influence? Maybe the market analysts didn't have anything better to cite for this huge bullish day in the markets.

The Chicago PMI came out for October at 66.2, up from September's 60.5. The University of Michigan's consumer sentiment report came in at 86.9 for October, up slightly from 86.4. These are solid numbers, but wouldn't account for the "buying with both hands" behavior we saw today.

SPX's close at $2018 set another all-time high. This straight up recovery from the intraday low on October 15th has to be a record. SPX has gained $197 or 11% in 12 trading days since October 15th - wow! Will this continue next week? Is the election connected to this in some way, e.g., a sell the news market on Tuesday? I don't know. Much of the time, the rationale for market movements day to day eludes me. The economic data remain pretty flat and unemployment remains stubbornly high, so it is hard to build a case for the exuberance we saw today. RUT remains way behind the large cap stocks. RUT's close today gets it within about $10 of its high from early September, but it is still way short of the all-time closing high at $1209 set back in March.

The 1810/1820 puts are all that remain of my November iron condor on SPX and they are now very far OTM. It is hard to believe that I was hedging those positions very strongly just a couple of weeks ago.

I will be glad when this election is over. I have yet to see or read any rational ads or articles dealing with the issues that face us - just smear tactics back and forth. Apparently the politicians don't give us credit for any critical thinking skills. Maybe we are getting what we deserve.

Enjoy the weekend.