Once again we opened lower and fought our way back. The Dow was down 150 early and closed with a loss of 12 points. Volume was heavy and the advance/declines were positive. The market is trying to hold up in the face of bad news again. We are going to break one way or the other soon in my opinion. If we continue to the upside early next week I'm going to look at the OEX puts. It is a crazy and volatile time. Gold snapped back $20 today and the XAU rose 11 3/4. ABX and GG gained over 3 and NEM was up 2 1/2. Volume was heavy again. It is unprecedented to see these issues gain and lose 10% in just a day. The gold market had stretched so far to the downside that it is like a rubber band effect and now it is snapping back. Who knows how long or far it will go? We now have hammers on the weekly gold issue candlestick charts which implies higher prices unless we go right back down next week. The GG calls are still in the red but a day like today gives hope that the loss can be cut and something salvaged from this trade. But you never know. The dollar finally sold off today after reaching the 80 level of resistance. GE lost over 1 1/4 on extremely heavy volume. That doesn't bode well going forward if it serves as a proxy for the overall market. Mentally I'm feeling OK, slept well again. These are strange and volatile times in the markets. There are opportunities out there but there is also a lot of risk. Option expiration week is coming up. I really don't know how we have held up here so far but next week could get ugly if there is even more bad news. Perhaps there will be some announcements over the weekend. I'll check the charts over the weekend and get ready for what should prove a volatile week. But for now it's time for a break.