Today's markets had one of those slow days with minimal progress in either direction on lower than average volume. That has been unusual lately as the markets just shoot higher day after day. SPX closed unchanged at $2018 after trading as high as $2024. RUT dropped off $3 to close at $1170. The VIX added almost three quarters of a point to close at 14.7%. Trading volume was down across the board with 2.0 billion shares of the S&P 500 stocks trading. Trading volume declined 15% on both the NYSE and the NASDAQ.

Today's candlestick on SPX was the classic doji, a sign of indecision or balance between the bulls and the bears. It wouldn't be surprising to see the indexes slow and trade sideways for a bit after such a strong rally over the last two weeks.

The ISM manufacturing index posted an increase to 59.0 for October from 56.6 in September. Construction spending was up slightly with a decline of 0.4% in September, up a bit from the -0.5% last month.

My November iron condor continues to build gains as the market heads higher. The remaining SPX Nov 1810/1820 put spreads are far OTM at this point with a little less than three weeks to go. My December iron condor on SPX is positioned at 1810/1820 and 2080/2090. Since we sold the put spreads on 10/21, our gains on that side have balanced recent losses on the call spreads so the entire position stands at a net loss of about 1%. If SPX continues higher, we will have to hedge our call spreads.

We have the jobs report coming up on Friday. We may see some more low volume, sideways trading days this week in advance of that report.

I sold the HLF 42/45 and 63/66  and the PCLN 1125/1130 and 1270/1275 iron condors today in anticipation of their earnings announcements (all with NovWk1 options). HLF looks like a winner at this point, but PCLN announces earnings in the morning before the market opens.