The markets generally traded lower today, with the exception of the financial stocks. But significant support levels such as the SPX's $1000 level held up, so the market uptrend is still a force to be reckoned with. While bears tried to drive the averages down today, they couldn't hold the lows of the day and that shows the strength of the bullish case for this market. Given that the ADP payroll report and other economic news today was weak to outright negative, this support is significant.

The RUT closed down at $565.99. The delta of my short $590 calls in my August iron condor dipped down to 19 today, so I sold my Sept $530 call for $40.80, a $3,120 gain (my insurance). Thus, my condor position now stands at a P/L of -$2,590, delta = -$57, and theta = +$139. Time to expiration is diminishing (now 15 days), and that helps dilute the effect of additional moves against my position. But my 590/600 call spreads remain in a precarious situation. I cannot tolerate much of an upward move in RUT. At this point, my condor is a loser; I just have not confirmed the amount of that loss. My condor is unbalanced at this point with ten 590/600 call spreads and twenty 480/490 put spreads. I considered selling ten 610/620 call spreads today, but the credits were too small (ca. $0.40). I then considered additional 590/600 spreads but the resulting position delta would be around -$138 with about +$210 theta - nice bump in theta, but too much price risk. That addition would have restored the possibility of a net gain for this condor position, but I decided the risk wasn't justified. My dad was a serious poker player and he often said, "don't throw good money after bad", meaning don't add money to the pot after your probabilities of success have dropped.