A mixed bag today as the Dow rose 49 points on light volume.  The advance/declines were slightly negative.  The summation index is moving sideways.  The overall market was weaker than the Dow with the S&P along with the NASDAQ lower.  It was a volatile session with selloffs both early and late.  We had a gap higher at the open and then a 30 point sell off in the S&P.  The market worked its way higher for the rest of the session until the final five minutes that took us back to negative on the day.  The S&P 500 remains below its 50 day moving average and the short term technical picture is now mixed.  What happens here will determine a lot.  The volume has lightened up this week at the 50 day moving average for the S&P.  If we can get through there we'll see higher prices.  If not, we'll be headed lower again.  GE was up a few cents on good volume.  Gold was off $8 and the US dollar was slightly lower.  The XAU and GDX had slight fractional losses again on average volume.  Maybe we can finally see the gold shares reach oversold territory.  Mentally I'm feeling OK.  Chairman Powell will be speaking tomorrow and that should move things one way or the other.  The VIX bounced off of its 50 day moving average again today and closed above 16.  What happens here must be closely watched as well.  A break of the 50 day average should lead to higher prices.  However we are now oversold here and a rising VIX is a distinct possibility as well.  The option premiums remain steep and I'll be waiting until next week at least before attempting the next trade.  At least that's my thought at the moment.  Next week is the final week of summer for traders, so the volume and desks might be thin.  I suppose we'll see what happens tomorrow and go from there.  Asia was higher with the exception of Hong Kong.  Europe was lower.  We close out the trading week tomorrow.