A mixed bag today as the Dow fell 285 points on good volume. The advance/declines were negative. The summation index is still moving up. The NASDAQ posted a slight gain and the S&P 500 finished around unchanged. The short term indicators for the S&P are beginning to stall. We've got the Fed next week and the backdrop of waiting for the next headline out of Washington. My guess would be that we are on our way to a new all time high in the S&P 500 but that isn't etched in stone. SPY option premiums remain high. Gold was up $66 on the futures to close at a new all time high on its way to $5000. The US dollar took a big hit and interest rates were slightly lower. The XAU was up 8 1/3 and GDX added 1 7/8. Volume was slightly below average. GDX remains short term overbought as it has been for a couple of weeks. My open order for the GDX February puts remains out there as I moved the strike price on the ticket. We'll see what happens over the weekend and go from there. The lower US dollar is a boost for gold so perhaps this idea for the puts is not best one at this time. I'll reconsider over the next couple of days. Mentally I'm feeling OK. The VIX was a bit higher today. Some of its short term indicators are beginning to track sideways. Not exactly sure what's next for this indicator. After a rough start to the short week stocks turned around and finished higher. I'm not sure if it is the beginning of a new leg higher for the S&P or a snapback to the broken short term up trend line. We'll probably know the answer next week. I'll be going over the charts this weekend to try and come up with a game plan moving forward. Asia was higher on Friday with the exception of India and Europe finished mixed. It's Friday afternoon and time for a break.