The week starts with a dramatic one day upside reversal as stocks opened with a big gap lower only to come all the way back to close in positive territory. The Dow rose 86 points on heavy volume. The advance/declines were positive. The summation index continues higher. The NASDAQ and S&P 500 had modest gains. New highs for the Dow and S&P. The S&P remains short term overbought but still not completely. I did place an order overnight for the SPY January puts as the futures were weak. However I canceled it during the morning when it was obvious that the market was not about to tank. We are still considering getting the SPY puts if we continue to see strength into Wednesday morning. Inflation data due out the next couple of days. Not sure what the reaction will be as some of the numbers are old due to the US government shutdown. Gold was up over $100 on the futures today as uncertainty and geo-political tensions are still center stage. The US dollar was lower and interest rates finished little changed. The XAU was up about 14 points and GDX climbed 3 1/4. New highs for both. Volume was good to the upside. GDX is short term overbought and staying there. Obviously owning the GDX calls here was the way to go. This was once again a move that should have been chased. Mentally I'm feeling OK. The VIX was higher today which doesn't fit an up market. Still mid-range on the short term indicators which means things could go either way. It is possible that we will see the positive expiration week bias in effect which would make the SPY put idea the wrong one. But I'm willing to take the risk if the market cooperates in the next two sessions. We'll see. Asia and Europe closed higher with the exception of France. I'll keep an eye on the overnight developments.