SPX gapped open yesterday morning, ran up over 1% and broke through the 50 dma like a champ. Today it gave about half of that back, dropping $9 to close at $2042, and closing below the 50 dma at $2044.  RUT lost $6 to close at $1191, but RUT remains well above its 50 dma at $1182. Both SPX and RUT remain solidly in a sideways trading range since the market peaks in mid-December. The volatility index, VIX, declined markedly yesterday, but tacked on a point to close up at 18.3% today, probably affected by the nearly one percent decline in SPX that occurred in less than ten minutes just before the close today. That was enough to get everyone's attention. That market move was apparently in reaction to the latest posturing in the Euro Zone/Greece debt negotiations. It will be interesting to see if markets continue to be weak tomorrow morning or if this was a bit of overreaction.

Trading volume remains above average with 2.7 billion shares of the S&P 500 trading (the 50 dma is at 2.2B). Volume rose 6% on the NYSE and rose 2% on NASDAQ.

The ADP private employment report came in at 213 thousand new jobs, down from last month's +253k. This has traders worrying about Friday's jobs report. The ISM services index reported out at 56.7 for January, slightly higher than December's 56.5.

My February iron condor on RUT stands at a net gain of 15% and is almost perfectly delta neutral. As long as the markets churn sideways, delta neutral traders will be happy. But this market remains nervous, as we were reminded late this afternoon as SPX fell out of bed. Don't take your eye off the ball.