Trading volume declined as the markets largely traded sideways today. SPX closed up $1 at $1446 and RUT closed unchanged at $841. Trading volume on the S&P 500 dropped to 2.4 billion shares, beneath the 50 dma. Trading on the NYSE dropped 7% and trading volume declined 11% on NASDAQ. VIX ran up to 16.5% today, but then retreated to close at 15.7%, down almost one percent.

We didn't have any significant economic news today. But tomorrow brings the ADP private employment report, and many traders will use that as a forecast of Friday's non-farm payrolls report. Tomorrow also brings the ISM services index; it will be interesting to see if it turned more positive as its manufacturing counterpart did yesterday.

My Oct condor position stands at a net loss of -$400 with delta = -$56 and theta = +$100. The adjustments have chewed up much of the potential gains for this position; the maximum gain at this point would be around 7%.

The bulls and bears appear to roughly balanced in power; news and economic data may tip the markets either way. There seems to be a strong case for either side of this argument.