After such a stellar performance yesterday, I expected some profit taking to pull the markets back a bit today, but that wasn't the case. SPX chopped along largely sideways all day and then weakened in the last two hours to close down $2 at $1394. RUT lost $8 to close at $823. RUT continues to trade weaker than SPX and this is a concern for me; it tells me this market isn't as strongly bullish as it appears. Trading volume bumped up a little today with 3.4 billion shares of the S&P 500 trading, but was basically flat to slightly down on the NYSE (-4%) and NASDAQ (-2%). Weak volume is the other odd aspect of this year's rally; does this suggest many traders and institutions remain on the sidelines? Or have a large number of individuals simply left the stock market?

The VIX popped up a bit today, closing at 15.3%, still quite low as compared to the past two or three years. This is a low level for the VIX, but remember: even if it is low, it can go lower yet. So I wouldn't trade this market bearishly based on the VIX. But the low levels of volatility do make buying put protection for your stock portfolio relatively inexpensive.

My April RUT condor is sitting perfectly delta neutral at a P/L of +$1,480 with delta = +$1 and theta = +$57.