SPX managed to close above that $1400 level everyone had been watching for some time this year. The bears have to be frustrated; anyone who has shorted this market is taking it on the chin. SPX gained $8 to close at $1403 and RUT closed up $8 at $831. Trading volume was down a bit from yesterday with 3.2 billion shares of the S&P 500 trading. Trading volume on the NYSE was down 3% and trading was up 1% on NASDAQ. RUT managed to close right at resistance; it has been trading in a range for the last 30 days or so and has failed to match its highs of 2011 while the SPX continues to march higher. VIX was largely unchanged at 15.4%.

Initial unemployment claims came in at 351k, a decline of 14k and continuing claims fell 81k to 3.3 million. The Empire manufacturing survey came in at 20.2, up from last month's 19.5 while the Philadelphia Fed survey reported 12.5, up from 10.2. PPI was reported as increasing 0.4%, which was a bit less than analysts expected, which is good in this case. I still marvel that inflation is so low with all of the printing of money going on.

My Mar condor will close out this weekend with the expiration of the 730/740 put spreads. The April condor on RUT is in good shape with a P/L of +$1,500 and position delta = -$19 and position theta = +$63 with 35 days to go.

The questions I am left with that have been bugging me for several weeks are: 1) Why is RUT lagging behind SPX? and 2) How will RUT and SPX get back in sync?