The Dow was up 60 points today on positive advance/declines. Volume was average. I sold the OEX calls I had for a loss. 20% and 5% respectively. I just could not afford to take the risk that tomorrow would be a down day and I would lose a lot more. My mistake here was that I had too much money in one trade. Overleveraged. My entry was a bit early and even though we have moved up over 100 points since the purchase it hasn't made any money. Of course I will be kicking myself if we open strong tomorrow, which is a possibility with good IBM numbers after the close. But what can ya do? The overall market has lagged the Dow the past two up-days and that isn't a positive sign. The volume hasn't been as strong going higher either. So I'm out and we'll see where I go from here. Still holding some November GE calls at breakeven. Want to keep them for a while. The XAU popped today for a couple points but I am going to wait for the XAU to get to the uptrend line if I can. Inflation report due out tomorrow and that will move things also. Sometimes you just have to get out of things that aren't working, no matter how much you want it to be right. I could not take the chance that tomorrow will open way down and my calls would be clobbered. Perhaps I will buy them again cheaper before the end of the week. But my work says that there is no great rally coming up now. I could be wrong. Maybe tomorrow I'll be glad I sold today. We'll see. Mentally, I'm OK but my mind is on the dentist tomorrow. Otherwise I'm fine but still need to get back in the habit of doing the day to day things that work for me. Like reading the blue book every morning. It needs to be done. Discipline cannot be emphasized enough.