The bullish push higher of the past couple of days sputtered out today. The major indexes posted minor gains on lower volume. SPX opened strongly and traded up to $2115, but then pulled back to close at $2109, up $4 on the day. RUT traded similarly, posting a small gain of $2, closing at $1269. Volatility contracted a bit, with the VIX losing about a half of a point to close at 12.8%. The last two days saw weak gains in trading volume, but trading fell off today with 1.8 billion shares of the S&P 500 trading. Trading volume fell 7% on the NYSE and decreased 9% on NASDAQ.

Initial unemployment claims for the week rose by two thousand to 279k and continuing claims rose by 61 thousand to 2.27 million. Retail sales perked up in May with a gain of 1.2%, but that wasn't enough to get this market excited.

The good news is that all the doom and gloom folks can't seem to get a selling spree started, but the bad news is that the bulls appear to have exhausted all of their energy just maintaining the status quo. So we continue to drift sideways in lower trading volume.

The July iron condor position on RUT in our Flying With The Condor™ service stands at a 16% gain today and the August position is up 6%.