SPX took us on a wild ride today, trading down below its 50 dma to $2095 (yesterday's open), but then recovering to close unchanged at $2109, within pennies of yesterday's close. RUT tacked on $2 to close at $1232, but RUT remains well below its 50 dma. Volatility continued to contract with the VIX dropping about a half point to 12.1%.

Trading volume fell back down to the 50 dma with 2.1 billion shares of the S&P 500 companies trading. Trading volume dropped 10% on the NYSE, but increased 2% on NASDAQ.

Initial unemployment claims increased by 12k this week to 267k, and continuing claims grew by 46k to 2.26 million. The first estimate of second quarter GDP came in at +2.3%, while the first quarter number was revised upward to a positive 0.6%. All of these revisions don't inspire confidence.

Investor's Intelligence surveys investment advisers every week and reported that this is the fifth week in succession that bullish advisers number less than 50%. Bearish advisers have grown to 39%. If you are contrarian by nature, this should tempt you to sell the farm and buy stocks. Or do you think the advisers know something you don't? Maybe they just realize we are entering the worst two months of the year for stock market gains. According to the Stock Traders Almanac, August is the worst performing month of the year for the Dow and the S&P 500 for the years 1988 to 2014, and September is a close second.

My September iron condor on RUT is now up 22%.

The Chicago PMI and consumer sentiment reports tomorrow. Today's market action seems to reinforce the range bound nature of this market.