It was a quiet day to the downside until the last half hour today. Then the bottom fell out as the Dow lost 120 points. Volume was light again and the advance/declines were negative. We needed to see some downside, technically and we got it. You really can't tell what will happen next since this was such a thinly traded week. My guess is that we will head back to the upside but I'll have to mull things over the long weekend. Gold was up $3 but the XAU was flat. I suppose it wasn't too bad for the gold shares considering the overall markets drop. ABX, GG and NEM had fractional moves one way or the other on light volume. My ABX calls are solidly in the red now and close to getting stopped out. Any downside on Monday will probably end this trade with a loss. The time premium continues to get sucked out of this trade. In retrospect they should have been dumped earlier this week and I could buy them back later if I chose to do so. It is however, a long weekend. We'll see what happens. Mentally I'm feeling OK, slept well enough. The 2009 trading year has come to a close and it wasn't a good one for me. My trading account was down 21%, which was almost a repeat of 2007 when I lost 25%. I have made some adjustments to my trading rules and it will be up to me to stick to them. There were many opportunities through out the year but my trading decisions never panned out as planned. My management of the trades is where most of the trouble was. I'm working on it. It is the toughest game in the world. There are no excuses. I'll go over the charts this weekend and be ready for Monday morning. For now though it's time to take a break over the long weekend. I'll be looking forward to a better trading year in 2010.