The market rallied back today as the economic numbers looked to be better than expected. The Dow rose 123 points on average volume. The advance/declines were 3 to 1 positive. The market ignored possible European credit downgrades and the Greece situation. The stock indices have the feel of wanting to go higher. Throw in an expiration Friday and I think we'll see better prices again tomorrow. We worked off the recent short term overbought condition and we're off to new highs for the year. Had I not been preoccupied with the losing ABX trade, perhaps I would have tried the OEX calls. GE was up 1/4 on light volume. Still waiting for the breakout here. Gold was flat on the futures after selling off early. The US dollar was weaker today. The XAU had a good day, up 5 1/3. ABX gained 3/4, GG rose 2 1/8 and NEM was up 7/8. Volume was good. The earnings for ABX were below expectations and it sold off with gold early. My ABX call trade ended up worthless. A complete loss. I didn't listen to the technicals and paid the price. There is no excuse. I didn't have the discipline and it cost me. Had I chosen GG instead, it would have worked out. But my information there stated the earnings would be out on the 24th and they came out yesterday after the bell. The Gold/XAU ratio signal was valid as we rallied the gold shares today. Mentally it's a loss of confidence once again. That is just one of the problems with losing trades. They make me scale back the risk and potentially miss out on better trades. As was the case with the OEX today. It's something that I've worked on in the past but today sends me back to square one again regarding my mental trading state of mind. I'll need to put todays losing trade behind me and move forward as soon as possible. The battle is always waged within myself. The stock indices had a good day today and appear to be poised to move even higher. Gold also made a nice comeback after selling off at the open. I'm not sure what my next trade will be at this stage. We'll see how the expiration goes tomorrow and then try to enjoy the long holiday weekend.