SPX had traded up for the past two days and spent almost all of today's trading session in the black, but then dove in the last twenty minutes of trading to turn in a $4 loss, closing at $2076. RUT traded in a similar pattern, except that RUT fell out of bed just before 2:00 ET and lost $7 to close at $1253. So why did the market sell off this afternoon? As usual, determining a clear answer is difficult at best. Some analysts think traders began to look forward to the FOMC minutes being released tomorrow and Alcoa's earnings after the close tomorrow. My answer is more basic. I don't know anyone who is comfortable with this bull market; we know it is largely artificial and built on the Fed's unprecedented experiment. As a consequence, Joe Trader has some nice gains, but is very nervous that the party will end abruptly and perhaps badly. Hence, he sells whenever he even sees a twitch he doesn't like.

Trading volume was down today with 1.7 billion shares of the S&P 500 stocks trading. Trading on the NYSE declined 11% and was down 6% on NASDAQ. Volatility has remained nearly flat for the past three days with the VIX around 14.8%. It is interesting that this afternoon's sell-off didn't raise volatility even a few tenths of a point.

The only economic data released today was relatively positive with the JOLTS job openings report at 5.133 million for February, up from 4.965M.

My May iron condor on RUT at 1110/1120 and 1330/1340 stands at a net gain of 9% today and is delta neutral at a position delta of -$1.30 per contract. We still have 37 days left in this position, but it is developing nicely.

It will be interesting to see how earnings season plays out. The expectations are pretty low, due to the expected effects of a strong dollar. Perhaps the relative weakness in the market for the past month has that disappointment priced in.