A rough start to the trading week as the Dow fell 151 points on light volume. The advance/declines were over 5 to 1 negative. Back to the troubles in Europe as now Italy is the latest country to unwind. I get the feeling that this isn't going to stop anytime soon. There are only so many times you can bail people out. I'm looking at the August and September OEX puts on a bounce back if we get one. The US debt problem isn't a problem in my mind. Some type of deal will be worked out. Perhaps we'll get a rally on that. The recent up move has been spectacular in my opinion. But I don't think that it has legs now. We'll see. GE was off 1/3 on light volume. It is now back at the 200 day moving average. No trades there for now. Gold was up $7 and that much more in the aftermarket. The XAU fell 3 1/8. The US dollar put in a good day as well. The flight to safety trade has returned. ABX, GG and NEM all had fractional losses on light volume. I may also try the gold shares for August and September as well if we get to some type of oversold level. If the Gold/XAU ratio climbs above 8, I may put on a trade then as well. However it is hard to get long gold when the US dollar is rallying. We'll see. Mentally I'm doing OK. The summer continues to be overly busy and volatile. This isn't the normal course of things. I will have to make the adjustment. 4 days to go in the July option cycle and I will not be trying anything this week. That's the thought at the moment. So I will look for some type of rally back to the highs of last Thursday and purchase some OEX puts if that occurs.