A mixed bag today with the Dow lower and the NASDAQ higher. The most watched index fell 302 points on good volume. The advance/declines were negative. The summation index is beginning to stall. We spent much of the day in negative territory but a final two hour bounce brought things back. The economic data had no real surprises either way. The S&P 500 posted a small loss. My idea of the SPY December calls is still out there but the time is running out. The S&P bounced off of its 50 day moving average today so perhaps today was the day to purchase them. However some of the short term indicators for the S&P are heading down and are not yet oversold. I'm thinking that if we see weakness tomorrow I might try that idea but the prudent thing to do here is probably to sit things out and wait for a decent technical signal. Yes, I would like to put on a trade before the year ends but sometimes taking no position is the better idea. I'll consider things overnight. Gold finished flat on the session. The US dollar was a bit lower and interest rates dipped as well. The XAU had a fractional loss, while GDX was unchanged. Volume was light. Some of the short term indicators for GDX continue to point down. No trades here for now. Mentally I'm feeling OK. The VIX finished basically unchanged. Some of the short term indicators here have turned up with plenty of room to go. Not sure where the VIX is heading next as it appears that it could go either way. Next up is the inflation data on Thursday to deal with. We also have expiration Friday and this is the final full week of trading before the market goes into holiday mode again. So if we are going to put on a trade, this is the week to do it. Asia and Europe finished lower overnight. We'll see what tomorrow brings.