The Dow gained 2 points on average volume. Advance/declines were positive but not by much. My OEX puts got stopped out early in the day when we were up around 50 points. It was a 50% loss. Not a great trade but I knew that going in. Not a lot of money involved but I really should have just sat it out. The battle is always against myself. But I'm moving on and was at least able to stop myself from doing something stupid again for the rest of the day. Retail sales came out good so we didn't drop as I had anticipated. I still think we're heading down here. Gold didn't end up much changed. It sold off early and came back to be up a tad. The XAU had the same action. NEM came all the way back as did ABX. I wanted to get some calls with 2 days left but did not. It's even riskier than the OEX in my opinion but the technicals are oversold. However the dollar is acting firmer here, so it's a tough call. I think it will be better to just let it go and look to January. There is an extra week on those options. So that's probably it for this year for me. It is a down year but not by much. Mentally I should take a little break here. The holidays will most likely be slow. I'm not feeling too bad about todays losing trade. It was executed properly, as have all the trades since that blowout in September. I really don't have anything on the horizon. Perhaps some gold shares. That's it for today.