The markets were pretty strong today, breaking several resistance levels. The Dow closed above $10,000 for the first time in over a year. I don't normally follow the Dow simply because it is a very narrow measure of the market with only 30 stocks. I believe the S&P 500 is a better overall measure of the market's action. SPX closed at $1092, solidly breaking through the previous high for this year of $1080, set on Sept. 23. RUT closed at $624, just shy of its high for the year of $625. It seems to me that these gains are too much, too soon, given the overall weakness of this economy. So I have tightened up the protective stop loss orders on all of my positions. A series of poor earnings reports from some of the big players scheduled this week could start that run for the exits. GOOG, IBM, and GS report tomorrow evening; GE and BAC report Friday. But, for now, one must respect that we are playing a bullish market trend and trade accordingly.

My Oct RUT iron condor is almost done with a P/L of +$670, delta = +$3, and theta = +$143. If tomorrow brings an exceptionally strong up day, I will buy back the 660 calls before the close. Today's run upward brought those calls just to the edge of two standard deviations OTM. The Nov RUT iron condor sits at a P/L of +$800, with a position delta of -$54 and theta = +$107.  In the meantime, earnings season is in full swing.