The markets opened strongly this morning and appeared to be on a mission to break this year's previous highs. SPX traded as high as $1427 this morning, breaking the April highs of this year; one has to go back to the spring of 2008 to match $1427. But it was almost as though that effort was too much for the markets, as they pulled back sharply. SPX closed down $5 at $1413 and RUT was almost flat, losing $1 to close at $815. Trading volume bumped up a bit to 2.4 billion shares of the S&P 500, but that is still below the 50 dma. Trading increased 17% on the NYSE and was up 8% on NASDAQ. The pullback resulted in VIX increasing one percentage point to 15%.

No economic news appeared to be responsible for either the bullish run this morning or the pull back. Perhaps breaking the April highs triggered a lot of profit taking from the recent run upward. I find it interesting how the economic woes of Europe are no longer in vogue. I still see articles and books about Europe's debt issues and our own looming "fiscal cliff", but the market seems oblivious.

My Sept iron condor stands at a P/L of -$1,060 with delta = -$128 and theta = +$100. Today's whipsaw in the markets cost me $1,080 in hedging my position today. But what can you do but follow your rules? Sometimes you are the windshield of that big BMW cruising without a care and sometimes you are the bug on the windshield.