The markets traded lazily this morning, but the bulls regained their strength around noon and pushed higher, with SPX briefly touching the all-time high at $2120, but it couldn't hold it, pulling back to close at $2113, up $5. RUT traded higher by $6 to $1272, but RUT didn't make it back to the highs it set last week. Volatility continues to contract with the VIX closing down 0.3 points to 12.4%. Trading volume popped up today with 2.3 billion shares of the S&P 500 stocks trading today. Trading volume rose 6% on the NYSE and increased 11% on NASDAQ.

Initial unemployment claims came in at 295k, flat with last week's 294k. Continuing unemployment claims increased by 50k to 2.33 million. New home sales dropped off from last month's annualized 543M to 481M for March.

I closed the May 1110/1120 put spreads in my May iron condor on RUT today for $0.08. That locked in a nice 17.6% gain for May and brings the Flying With The Condor™'s gains for the year to +17.1%. The June condor on RUT at 1100/1110 and 1350/1360 stood at a net gain of 11% at the close today.

I haven't seen a summary of all of the earnings announcements to date, but my perception is that the news has been better than expected. Maybe the bulls are encouraged and starting to jump back in this market.