Most market watchers were surprised by the strong bullish day yesterday, but they may be even more surprised by today's strong follow through. The major indexes traded steadily higher all day and closed at or near their highs for the day. This is a bit surprising given the jobs report due out tomorrow morning. One might have expected some modest pullback at the close as traders considered the possibility of a poor unemployment report tomorrow morning. The report of initial unemployment claims came in at 472k this week, down six thousand from last week.  Continuing unemployment claims also dropped slightly to 4.456 million from last week's 4.479 million. Pending home sales rose 5.2% and factory orders for July rose 0.1%. It is hard to find economic news to account for the recent rallies; it just seems the mood on the street has changed. SPX blew through its 50 dma to close at $1090, up $10 while RUT rose $7 to close at $632. Trading volume dropped off significantly today with a 17% decline on the NYSE and a 22% decline on NASDAQ. 3.1 billion shares of the S&P 500 stocks traded, a 21% decline from yesterday's strong volume day.

My Sept iron condor on RUT at 530/540 and 740/750 now stands at a P/L of +$2,270 with a position delta of +$8 and position theta of +$54. Both spreads are greater than two standard deviations OTM. Closing the 20 contract position now would leave about $500, including commissions, on the table. My normal rule would be to evaluate this trade next Friday and, if both spreads were still OTM by over 2 SD, I would allow them to go into expiration. But I may be tempted to close this position after the holiday and take my profits because I still consider this a dangerous market. The Oct iron condor is a bit underwater at P/L = -$460, delta =-$71, and theta = +91. The 690 calls have a delta of 15, so we are close to triggering an adjustment. If tomorrow's market pulls back a bit, that will help this Oct position but be indifferent for the Sept position.