The markets continue to basically chop sideways, but today it was on increased volume. SPX traded up $5 to close at $1451 while RUT lost $2 to close at $839. RUT has been running right along the support level at $840 for the past week; this was the resistance level held until the Bernanke announcement on 9/13. VIX dropped a bit to 15.4%, so that measure of fear is relatively complacent. Trading volume on the S&P 500 increased to 2.7 billion shares and trading increased 7% on the NYSE and increased 8% on NASDAQ.

The ADP employment report came in at 162 thousand new jobs and that boosted the market this morning, but the indexes lost much of that in the afternoon. The ISM Services index also buoyed traders with a increase from 53.7 to 55.1. An interesting tidbit was in the details of the ISM report: a decline of 2.7% in employment in the services industries.

Another drag on the market was HP warning of decreasing revenues and earnings. It seems like several blue chip companies have now warned about the upcoming earnings announcement cycle - FedEx started the trend a few weeks ago. I would argue that HP is a special case of a declining company, but FedEx is harder to ignore.

My Oct iron condor at 790/800 and 900/910 stands at a P/L of -$420 with delta = +$67 and theta = +$110. Chances are we won't see much market action tomorrow as traders wait for the jobs report Friday. But that assumes everything in Europe remains quiet.