The market traded largely sideways today with small losses at the end of the day. RUT closed at $612 and SPX closed at $1073. It appears the weakening dollar has run out of its ability to push the market higher. We also have some heavyweight earnings announcements coming this week. Johnson and Johnson's announcement was pretty good on the bottom line, but sales are weak. This underscores the fact that laying off people and other cost cutting measures are only a temporary fix. Announcements from JPM, GS, IBM, GOOG, BAC, and GE later this week will be watched closely. This market is looking for some good news to enable it to break through resistance at the 2009 highs or some bad news that leads to a significant pullback. Of course, failing either, we may just muddle along similar to today's trading - good news for delta neutral traders.

My Oct iron condor on RUT at 540/550 and 660/670 now stands at a P/L of +$535, delta = +$7, and theta = +$246. Both short strikes are 4-5 standard deviations OTM. My Nov RUT iron condor at 520/530 and 680/690 stands at a P/L of +$1,220, delta = -$13, and theta = +$93. Condor traders either are sitting around bored and watching the time decay build or anxiously adjusting positions as the market moves against them. There is a lot to be said for boredom. One warning: sometimes boredom leads to seeking out new trades or moving one's spreads in closer to the money. Don't. Trade your system.