GOOG inadvertently released its earnings announcement during the trading session today and spooked the markets. Trading opened a little weak this morning based on weak unemployment claims data (388k vs. last week's 342k), but had rebounded until about 12:30 pm ET when the GOOG earnings announcement surprised the market. GOOG tumbled and then trading in GOOG was halted, but the market averages tumbled with GOOG and then continued for a couple of hours before recovering some of their losses before the close. SPX closed down $4 at $1457 and RUT lost $5 before closing at $837. Trading volume bumped up a bit with 2.9 billion shares of the S&P 500 (GOOG alone traded 12 million shares). Trading on the NYSE increased 5% and trading volume on NASDAQ increased 15%.

Despite all of the excitement surrounding Google, volatility remained calm with the VIX at 15%.

My Nov iron condor on RUT stands at a net gain of $1,800 with position delta = +$13 and position theta = +$64. It will be interesting to see if the GOOG debacle and Microsoft's earnings disappointment pull this market back down tomorrow, or if it rebounds after today's GOOG shock.