I purchased some more gold calls today. Barrick Gold, ABX, the August 20's. I put an order in overnight and it got filled. Probably shouldn't have bought them. There was a terror alert on sunday and gold rallied. I didn't think the order would get filled but gold did nothing today and the price of ABX went nowhere so I got them. The action on the XAU wasn't promising either. Opened strong, sold off, came back and sold off again into the close. Not good action considering the news. The NEM calls are still showing a profit but it was off a few cents today. The technicals are looking like they want to roll over and that's not positive. The only plus was that the volume was low. The Dow was up 40 points today. Advance/declines were positive but the volume was low again. We are now overbought. I would like to buy some OEX puts. I think the ideal time would be on wednesday, if it stays up that long. I'll need to check the charts. The employment report is on friday. I do not have a good read on this report like I did on the GDP. I don't know what to expect. The Fed meets in a week and I'd like to say I think there is a chance they will stand pat and not raise rates. The dollar was a little weaker today. As for the market, perhaps today was a function of the beginning of the month money flowing in from the insurance companies and the funds. I'm not sure. It had every reason to sell off and it didn't. That's a positive. However I think the downside will resume here soon. Summation index is turning up, so I don't want to be too sure of myself. And I am already trading the gold which is getting me worried. You have to take chances in the game but you need to be smart about your chances. ABX did have a bullish engulfing pattern on its daily chart and that influenced me as well. We'll see what happens. I'll check the charts and determine if an OEX trade is warranted. Until tomorrow...