Continuing higher as the Dow gained 36 points on average volume. Advance/declines were 2 to 1 positive. I'm still looking at the OEX puts for the beginning of next week. If the market moves in the scenario that I expect, I'll give it a shot. Tomorrow should be an up day if all goes well. We then may get a divergence on the RSI. That's the idea at the moment. Gold was up 4 bucks and the gold shares followed with the XAU gaining 4 1/3. ABX, GG and NEM were all up by 2/3 on light volume. At one point I placed an order for some ABX calls but canceled it later. The technical indicators for the gold shares have started to move higher. It is a trade that could perhaps work. However my thinking is that with 6 days left and my scenario for a falling market coming up, this may not be the best trade at the moment. The dollar was weaker today however and the gold shares did outperform gold itself. I didn't want to take the risk here, I'll wait for the OEX. Mentally I'm doing OK, slept well enough for a change. So we'll see what the inflation data does to the markets and go from there. It could be that I sit out the August option cycle as well.