We bounced around lower for most of the day to end the month. The Dow lost 122 points and most of that was in the last 15 minutes. Advance/declines were negative and the volume was light. No follow through to yesterdays positive action. I'm still leaning towards trying the OEX puts if we make it back to the down trend line. But who knows? Maybe we will collapse before that happens. Or maybe the decline is over and we start a bit of a rally. No clear technical signals here. So it's even more of a guessing game than usual. Gold was basically flat again and the XAU fell 1 2/3. ABX off 1/3, GG down 1/4 and NEM led the way negative by over a buck. Volume was light. The dollar was stronger today. I have no solid idea of what to do with the gold shares at the moment. Almost back at a Gold/XAU buy signal. Gold has held up very good considering the damage done to the stock indices of late. But where we go from here is a mystery to me for now. Mentally I'm feeling OK, slept well. There are a lot of crosscurrents in the markets at the moment. Volatility has returned in a big way. A long holiday weekend is upon us. There will be plenty of time to go over the various charts and try to figure out what to do. There is a lot of uncertainty and the markets never react well to that. So I'll check things out over the next 3 days and go from there. But for now it's Friday afternoon and time for a break.