A downer for the markets today as the Dow fell 65 points on slightly better volume than yesterday. The advance/declines were about 2 to 1 negative. The Fed beige book was a mover today as we sold off on the expectation that the easing is done. Well rates are at zero, so the easing has been done for a while. But the markets need excuses to move and that was todays. We were off more than 100, so a comeback was made. The summation index is still trending down. I expect the rest of the week to be quiet but I thought that yesterday as well. GE fell a touch on light volume. The technicals have rolled over here and I'm still looking for an entry point for the May calls. The game plan is to own the calls before the earnings report on expiration Friday. We'll see. Gold got hammered today after the Fed minutes. The precious metal was down $7 on the futures but lost another $25 in the aftermarket. The US dollar in contrast had a very strong day. This doesn't bode well for gold in the near term. The XAU fell 5 1/2. ABX off 1 1/4, GG shed 2 1/2 and NEM dropped 1 3/4. Volume was good to the downside. I had to dump the ABX April calls for a 30% loss. What had been a profitable trade turned into a loss rather quickly. However I was slow to get out as well. I'm still interested in the May gold share calls but I'm going to have to see how todays negative action plays itself out. Mentally I'm feeling OK, slept well enough. Although I'm still looking for higher prices here for the stock indices there is a possibility that we simply move sideways for a time. The month of April sometimes plays out like that. The technicals for the stock indexes are either overbought or mid-range. I'm still a believer for the GE May call trade for now. The recent ABX trade loss could have been avoided with better timing and tactics but that is always the case. The entry there was lazy and the exit wasn't quick enough. That is a recipe for failure. I'll have to regroup and try to do better the next time. If GLD breaks through 158, then I think the time for being long gold will have to wait. So I'll keep an eye on that. The Gold/XAU ratio has remained in the strong buy zone for so long that it is beginning to seem irrelevant. I'll probably stay on the sidelines for the rest of this week and go from there.