The markets opened in slightly positive territory this morning and slowly gained throughout the morning in spite of generally negative economic news. The trade deficit for September was greater than expected, and that was followed by weak consumer sentiment numbers from the University of Michigan; but the falling dollar was enough to buoy the market. However, in the early afternoon, the negative news appeared to be taking its toll, but the bulls returned in the last hour of trading and recovered almost all of the lost ground. RUT closed up $6 at $586 and the SPX closed up $6 to close at $1093.

Early this morning, I decided to remove my Jan $630 call hedges (sold at $8.20 for a loss of $540). However, by the end of the day, my condor was nearly back to an area requiring adjustment. The condor now stands at a P/L of -$60, delta = -$64 and theta = +$124. The theta/delta ratio is pretty strong at about 2:1. It appears that the SPX will have difficulty breaking through $1100, so I am expecting the markets to trade sideways for a while here. This isn't too surprising after the strong rally of the past few months. A nice boring trading range would be welcome news for delta neutral traders.