The Dow was up 64 points today on good volume. Advance/declines were negative though. Most of the gain was due to GM having good earnings. I don't see any big moves up from here. I think the expiration is keeping us up at this point. I expect weakness early next week. The story was gold. It got killed, down over $12. The first decline of significance in quite a while. It disappoints me that it just couldn't hold up for one more day. NEM came out with great earnings just as I had thought. But the weakness in gold was extreme and everything gapped down big. You can have everything go as you think and still get killed in this game. Volatility works both ways. I suppose yesterday would have been the time to sell and I might have if I wasn't waiting for the earnings. And it could have been a great trade if not for the pounding in gold on the same day. I dumped the calls early, when I realized that the market was not going to come back or even attempt to rally. My hesitation cost me some money, for sure. I should have just got out immediately but sometimes it's hard to tell. Or maybe I just got greedy but I'm not so sure about that. It wasn't completely clear to see what would happen. You really just never know. You can't predict a gap down like that. It's a tricky market in gold for sure. The highs and lows sometimes are pretty volatile. But you put forth your best effort and do what you can. I guess I was lucky to get out when I did. I'm not happy with the results and I should have done better. You really have to have your act together to play this game. The NEM calls showed a profit of over 400% but it should have been a hell of a lot more than that. NEM ended the day down 3 bucks. All the gold shares plummeted. The XAU lost nearly 10 points. Unheard of but it has happened before. I now need to regroup. The April option cycle has been brutal. I have nothing on the horizon and will have to wait for gold to settle down. My next thought is to get short the OEX for sometime in May. We'll see...