The Dow lost 140 points today on OK volume. Advance/declines were about 2 to 1 negative. So much for the early week positive expiration bias. We're still in an uptrend though. Oil was lower today and that didn't help. No trades here for now. Gold lost another $13 but is coming back in the aftermarket. The XAU gained 4 1/4. ABX and NEM both up 3/4, while GG rose 1 1/2. They all had good volume. I'd like to think we are putting in a bottom here. I had some orders for calls in but they were not filled. I'm leaving in some overnight orders. The options didn't move much even with the gains of today and that has me puzzled. The gold shares are still very oversold. I think it's worth taking a shot here but it may just be a dead cat bounce. GE lost 1/4 on light volume. Although I haven't traded GE in a while, I still feel it's a good proxy for the overall market. Mentally I feel pretty good, slept well. I'm still making a case in my mind for the gold shares here. They have fallen so far, so fast that I have to believe a decent bounce is going to occur. I could be wrong. And I could be late. I'm going to try not to chase things here. There's also the possibility that we just move sideways for quite some time on the gold indices. 3 days before expiration. I'm also thinking that perhaps things will slow down in the next couple of weeks before Labor day. It hasn't happened yet this summer so we'll see.