After Thursday's strong down day, one might expect Friday's market to be up; at least, that has been a common pattern the past six weeks or so. Although Friday started out in the red, trading slowly climbed all day and had a final strong push during the last thirty minutes of trading. RUT closed up over $6 at $611 while the SPX closed at $1102, also up $6. Trading volume on the NYSE was the highest all year; normally, I would take that as a very bullish sign, but at least some of that volume was related to various options expiring. Positive earnings announcements from ORCL, RIMM and others certainly helped the market, but it seemed that the dollar giving back most of Thursday's gains did more for the market than anything else.

Friday marked the official end of my Dec iron condor on RUT as my 500/510 put spreads expired worthless to leave me with a gain of $2,450 or 15%. It is worth noting that this was not an easy gain; we had five adjustments and/or rolls during this trade. By contrast, my Jan 510/520 and 650/660 condor is now up $1,640 with 27 days to go and no adjustments whatsoever. The short term Jan iron condor at 570/580 and 630/640 stands at a P/L of +$500, delta = -$45 and theta = +$65.

Next week brings several economic announcements: GDP, home sales, personal consumption data, and the MI consumer sentiment index. Barring any surprises in these announcements, next week is likely to be slow and lacking clear direction, given the holiday and fewer people on the trading floors.