The Labor Department surprised investors this morning with good news: unemployment dropped to 10% and only 11k jobs were lost in November, a large difference from October when 111k were lost. As one might expect, this pushed the markets to new highs in the first few minutes of trading, but they couldn't hold those gains. Some of the morning's losses were recovered in the last hour of trading to keep the indexes in positive territory for the day. RUT closed up over $14 at $603 while the SPX set new 2009 highs at $1119 in the first few minutes of trading, but the sellers came in and took it back down. Like RUT, buyers emerged in the last hour to close SPX up $6 at $1106. The positive employment news also bolstered the dollar, up 1.4% today. The market run in early trading was unusual of late in that it flew in the face of the rising dollar. It appears this market is consolidating the strong gains of the past few months in a narrow range; since Nov. 10, the S&P 500 has traded between $1087 and $1119. Over the same period of time, RUT has traded between $584 and $607. It is no wonder our iron condors have been maintenance-free the past few weeks!

My Dec iron condor on RUT stands at a P/L of +$450, delta = -$127 and theta = +$205. The 630/640 call spreads are right at one standard deviation after today's move up. Recall my rule: on the Friday before expiration, I close spreads that are less than two standard deviations OTM. So it is appearing likely that I will be closing these spreads next week unless RUT pulls back a bit. The Jan RUT condor was pulled back into the red by today's move upward with a P/L of -$300, delta = -$66 and theta = +$102. The Jan 650/660 call spreads are nearing an area that will require adjustment if RUT continues upward.