Back to the upside as the Dow gained 423 points on heavy volume. The advance/declines were over 10 to 1 positive. We were up well over 500 points and dropped over 100 in the last half hour. We have traded several hundred point up and down days this week. At this pace we should be down 400 points tomorrow but who knows? This kind of volatility won't last forever. The stock indices are trying to put in a bottom here. It remains to be seen if they will be successful. The McClellan oscillator is working off its very oversold condition. You can really make a case for either way here at the moment. 6 days to go in the August option cycle. I have no OEX trades in mind here and you have to be careful. The premiums have so much volatility in them that as we get towards the end of next week option values will plummet. I'll make a trade if there is a decent set up but otherwise I'll sit things out. GE was up 60 cents on good volume. Oversold and a bounce is expected. I'm looking at the January calls there. If we head back down again, that is a trade that I'm willing to try. Gold got clobbered today as margin requirements to hold the precious metal were raised. The same thing happened when silver went parabolic and it marked the end of the rally. Can history be repeating itself? Gold was off over $30 on the futures. However the XAU was up 3 1/8. ABX and GG had fractional gains while NEM was up 2 1/2. Volume was good again. The gold shares put in a good performance despite the drop in gold. A 400 point rise in the stock market can take some of the credit. The US dollar bounced around today but ended up about unchanged. My ABX calls are still in profit mode. I'll hang on to them for now. Not overbought here yet. Mentally I'm feeling a bit tired, did not sleep well. It has been quite a week and we still have to get through Friday. The volatility has been off the charts. I don't see any short term trades here for me but that could change. Let's see what happens tomorrow and go from there.