Digestion of the recent gains as the Dow fell 9 points on light volume.  The advance/declines were negative.  The summation index has started to move sideways.  I'm trying to remain patient here but I don't want to be late for the September OEX puts.  The timing for purchase looks like it will be tough as usual.  The ideal scenario would be a nice up move tomorrow in the stock indices.  But the market rarely cooperates.  Trading the index options requires even more finesse than individual issues in my opinion.  Hopefully the upside expiration week bias will continue.  Another short squeeze would be good for the cause but that remains to be seen.  GE was off over 1/8 and the volume was very light.  The September puts that I own here are slightly in the black.  Gold was little changed on the session but did come off of its highs.  Ditto for the US dollar.  The XAU rose 1 3/8.  ABX, GG and NEM were all higher by 1/2 or so.  Volume was good for the summer.  The October ABX calls that I have are in the black.  Plenty of time to go here.  Mentally I'm feeling OK.  We got a bounce from the oversold levels of the major stock indices and now we are waiting for the next catalyst.  Perhaps the retail sales data tomorrow will provide some direction.  Maybe if we can get some rally from the overseas markets it will propel the US stock indexes higher.  For now we're more oversold than overbought short term.  Just waiting to buy some September index puts at this point.  Gold is on hold but the daily Bollinger bands are starting to get closer, which implies some movement coming in the near future.  The gold shares are out performing now and that is a positive.  However silver is not moving higher with gold and remains oversold.  The best situation would be to get those two rising in tandem.  We can hope but hope has no place in trading.  We'll keep an eye on the overnight price action and see what tomorrow brings.