Traders returned from the Labor Day holiday amid concerns for the health of the European Banks. This weighed heavily on financial stocks in our markets, and those selling pressures led to some profit taking in other sectors as well. The European financial concerns drove the Euro down and led to increased strength in the U.S. dollar, further weakening U.S. equities. I expected increased trading volume coming off the holiday weekend, but trading volume was weak virtually across the board. Trading was down 13% on the NYSE, but up 2% on NASDAQ. The S&P 500 stocks traded down significantly from last week to 2.7 billion shares, well below the 50 dma at 3.6 billion shares. RUT lost $14 to close at $629 and the SPX closed at $1092, giving up $13. Both indexes broke down through new support levels, which are the old resistance levels broken on the way up last week. The SPX broke down through its $1100 resistance level but remained above the 50 dma at $1082; RUT stopped just above its 50 dma at $627. I didn't find today's weakness too alarming due to the low volume and the fact that it wasn't based on some fresh economic news that the markets found to support the double dip fears.

My Sept iron condor is in excellent position with its P/L of +$2,350, delta = $1 and theta = +$82. The call spreads are over four standard deviations OTM while the put spreads are 3.4 standard deviations OTM. I made some adjustments to the Oct condor today that improved its position to a P/L of -$340, delta = -$29 and theta = +$117. For the directional trader in you, I suggest AAPL. I was impressed with AAPL today as the market indexes all pulled back significantly while AAPL lost less than a dollar per share. I have had the Jan 2011 270/300/330 call butterfly on AAPL for a couple of months and I think this remains a strong year-end play.