The Dow gained 25 points today on light volume again. Advance/declines were almost 2 to 1 positive. The inflation data was good but we didn't get much of a rally. I still want to believe in the OEX calls here but with 3 days left it ain't gonna happen. The Bollinger bands are contracting on the chart so some will happen here soon. Gold lost a couple bucks and the XAU suffered, losing a point and a third. NEM was lower by a half on lighter volume than the preceding rally. My calls got clobbered, losing half their value. Ouch. I'm still a believer here too for higher prices but now I'm not so sure. The disconnect with the dollar doesn't give me anything to cue off of except the price action. And time is running out. We also have been pushed back by a downtrend line on the metal itself and I'm not sure we will get through it this week. If we did it would be wonderful for the calls. But that's a big if and I can't go by that. It could be that this is all there is. I'm trying not to get greedy and the technicals for the XAU and NEM are overbought. I had better use some common sense. However a down open tomorrow spells trouble. This is were we find out what kind of trader it takes to be successful. My thoughts now are that a stop-loss order should have been in place as is the rule. But for some reason I didn't do it before the close yesterday. So whatever I get I deserve. Mistakes are costly and greed is terrible. There are no excuses. It really gets dicey when the time is short. But it is what it is. We'll see what tomorrow brings...