The employment report came out and it was a strong number.  The Dow rallied right away and then gave it all back, only to continue the upward drift for the rest of the day.  The Dow finished the day with a gain of 67 points on average volume.  The advance/declines were 2 to 1 positive.  The summation index continues to the upside.  The market can remain overbought longer that I could stick around for the March OEX put trade.  I had to sell them today for a 70% loss.  With only a week to go in the March option cycle, I didn't want to see another 100% shellacking.  Do I think the market will pull back at the beginning of next week?  Yes but most likely not enough to make that trade profitable.  GE was up 1/8 on light volume.  No trades in mind there for now.  Gold sold off early on the jobs report but somehow made it all the way back to finish up a couple of bucks.  This occurred despite a very strong US dollar.  I don't know what to make of it.  The XAU was up 2/3.  ABX and GG were off 1/8, while NEM fell 2/3.  Volume remains good here.  My April ABX calls remain losers for now.  6 weeks to go on the April option cycle from here.  I'll need to see some more one point up days in ABX for this trade to work.  Wishful thinking perhaps on my part as we remain both short and medium term oversold here.  Mentally I'm feeling OK.  I gave the OEX March puts a try and it failed.  Definitely early there and perhaps the stock indices will have their usual upward expiration week bias.  But there is still the negative divergence on the daily RSI.  Unless we really move higher from here, that divergence cannot be ignored.  That said, I think when we do reach the next top, it will be an important one.  But none of that really matters now.  I booked the loss and it's time to move on.  Who knows?  Maybe I'll try again next week.  Gold had a strange day.  It had every reason to sell off hard and it didn't.  A very strong jobs number coupled with a huge move up in the US dollar.  Usually that would have led to at least a $20 move lower in the precious metal.  Didn't happen.  Perhaps the gold market is telling us something we don't know yet.  Or not.  It could just as easy drop on Monday for all I know.  The technicals for the gold shares have been begging for some kind of rally for weeks.  However it just isn't happening.  I've said it a number of times recently, gold is dead money.  I'll be going over the charts this weekend to come up with the next idea for a trade.  For now it's Friday afternoon and time for a rest.