We were down, up, down and up again. It is that kind of market. The Dow closed up 47 points today on good volume. Advance/declines were positive. I wouldn't mind having some OEX calls here but the premiums are really expensive. Plus this is a market that goes down 300 points out of nowhere. However it could go up 3oo points too. The previous lows are holding for now which is a positive sign for the bulls. Perhaps I'll get some OEX calls tomorrow. We'll see. Gold was up $5 today but the XAU was flat. Still getting a buy signal there. One of two things will happen. Either gold will start to fall or the XAU will start to rise to balance out the signal. Hopefully the XAU starts to rise since I bought some ABX calls today. ABX lost 1/3 on good volume today. NEM was up 1/3. We are oversold on ABX and there is a potetial double bottom in the XAU here. That could all be negated with downside action tomorrow. Gold was higher even with a stronger dollar today. Crosscurrents. However my thinking is that the market will get a rally here and take the gold shares with it. Or not. I had to adjust the order to get filled as nobody wanted to take my original offer. So we'll see. GE was flat on good volume. INTC didn't do much after being down early. Mentally I'm feeling OK, slept OK. I could have waited on the ABX trade but I felt the timing had to be today. The attention that must be given once in a trade is so much more then the preparation for it. It's the nature of the game. There are no short cuts and the work has to be done. Hence, so many failures. Not that preparation isn't important, it certainly is. But when the money is actually out there, as opposed to thinking about it being out there, the intensity picks up. That's why the stop loss orders are important. Don't trade without them.