It was a very interesting half session today as the Dow roared ahead by 172 points.  The advance/declines were 5 to 1 positive and the volume was extremely light.  Not your typical holiday half session plodding along.  It was however, a very light volume levitation all week.  Not to be trusted in my opinion.  I would not be surprised by some type of pull back early next week.  I would expect it.  GE was up 1/3 and the volume wasn't too bad.  Perhaps that bodes well for the overall market here.  That's a guess as usual.  No trades in GE for now.  Gold had a decent day as well on a weaker US dollar.  Perhaps there will be some good news out of Europe soon.  That could be what the dollar is signaling.  At any rate, the precious metal futures were up over $20.  The gold shares lagged again though as the XAU only gained 3 points.  ABX, GG and NEM all had fractional gains on very light volume.  My January ABX calls are still in the red but by not as much.  I'll be holding on to this position at least into next month barring a catastrophe.  Mentally I'm feeling OK.  A nice upside week for the stock indices but the volume was anemic.  It's hard to trust light volume rallies.  But who knows?  Maybe this is the beginning of something sustained for the bulls.  I think the jury is still out though.  I'm not looking for a good year for the overall stock market next year but I'm wrong as much or more than I'm right lately.  Gold has started to move higher, perhaps back to the resistance at $1800.  I need to see the gold shares take the lead here though, for the ABX trade to work out.  Plenty of time for that trade but there is the possibility that we'll see plenty of end of the year tax loss selling there.  Just a guess as usual.  It's a holiday weekend as time to put the markets aside for a while.  We'll get back to it Monday morning.