Trading is mixed late-Wednesday and the S&P 500 is down 2 points to 2066.59 heading into the final hour. It hit a midday low of 2058, but gathered afternoon strength on reports Ukraine leaders are pushing through a declaration of support at peace talks.

Market Vectors Russia Fund (RSX), which slipped in early trading, is now up 1.8% and to session highs of $17.05 amid the crossing headlines.

Treasury bonds are steady ahead of Retail Sales numbers tomorrow morning and the yield on the benchmark ten-year eased back to 1.99%.

Energy (XLE) is a losing sector after crude slipped back below $50. Utilities (XLU) lost 2%. Technology (XLK) and consumer staples (XLP) are seeing relative strength.

CBOE Volatility Index (.VIX) has traded in a narrow range and is flat at 17.30. Options volumes are light for a third time this week. Projected volume for the day is 14.1 million contracts and about 15% below the one month average. 6.3 million calls and 5.9 million puts have traded across the exchanges.

Noteworthy flow in RSX for a second day. While Feb 18 call buyers on the Russia ETF were active yesterday, the big trade today is a seller of 50,000 Feb 15 puts on RSX at 17 cents per contract.

The iShares Brazil Fund (EWZ), on the other hand, is seeing notable put buying. Shares dropped to 52-week lows as the Rousseff administration is facing falling approval ratings amid an escalating corruption scandal. 80,000 puts and 8,400 calls traded in EWZ options. VXEWZ, the VIX for Brazil, is up 1.36 to 40.26.

Yet, despite the media focus on macro events like Greece, Russia, and other parts of the globe, the big institutional investors (which typically send out warning flares through the options market in the form of big blocks of index and ETF puts ahead of episodes of market volatility) are not aggressively hedging this week. In fact, the most actives options today are March Quarterly 155 puts on the SPDR 500 Trust (SPY), as one institutional player is apparently liquidating a position opened Friday. More than 144,000 SPY March Quarterly 155 puts have changed hands and tomorrow’s open interest numbers are likely to confirm the flow is closing.

Maybe tomorrow’s Retail Sales print will stir up a bit more action, but trading is likely to slow later in the week heading into the long President’s Day Weekend.