Have the bulls run out of steam? Or was today just a case of traders taking their profits before relaxing for the weekend? The jobs report was on everyone's mind before the open this morning, and I think it should be described as reasonably positive with 144k new jobs and the unemployment rate decreasing to 7.8%. Like much of the economic data we have been seeing for a while, it is weak, but at least moving in the right direction. SPX promptly ran to $1471 but then the bears clawed it back to close at $1461, virtually unchanged on the day. RUT lost $2 to close at $843. Trading volume decreased with 2.4 billion shares of the S&P 500; trading on the NYSE dropped 10% and trading on NASDAQ increased 3%. The VIX dropped down to 13.7% during the euphoria this morning, but then climbed back to close at 14.3%, down about 0.2 points.

When I draw the trend line on the SPX chart from early June to today, this bullish trend lines up very nicely. But now SPX is getting squeezed between the previous highs around $1465 and the trend line around $1445. When I saw the jobs report this morning, I thought that might be the impetus to break out to new highs, but that wasn't the case. I wonder what news we have in store for next week and which way this market may tip?

My Oct RUT condor stands at a P/L of +$60 with delta = +$49 and theta = +$118. My Nov iron condor at 750/760 and 910/920 stands at a P/L of +$1,100 with delta = -$0.5 and theta = +$57. That is about as delta neutral as you can get!

Enjoy the weekend. Remember to pause in your list of chores around the house and spend some quality time on what's really important in your life.