Today it was a one day reversal back to the upside as the Dow was off over 100 points early but closed the day up 35.  The advance/declines were positive and the volume was average.  Apparently the Washington budget mess is a market non-event.  Moving to short term overbought for the stock indices but we're not there yet.  The summation index is moving sideways for now.  I'm still inclined to purchase some OEX March puts before next Fridays employment numbers.  I'll reconsider this idea over the weekend.  GE was off a couple of cents on average volume.  More overbought than oversold here.  There's still a gap to be filled that is lower than where we are now.  Gold was off $5 on the futures, which wasn't too bad considering the continued strength in the US dollar.  The dollar is overbought and staying there.  The XAU was off a point.  ABX down 7/8, GG was up a touch and NEM shed 2/3.  Volume was very heavy for ABX and good for the others.  My open order for the April ABX calls was filled.  It is already in the red.  Perhaps I'm early for this idea but we are very oversold on any time frame.  But that doesn't mean ABX can't go even lower.  Plenty of time for this idea to work though.  However my gold share trades for the past year have been losers with one exception.  Mentally I'm feeling OK.  Although I'm looking for some type of decline in the stock indexes next week, there is a possibility that we will move to new highs on the Dow as well.  We could be on the brink of the final leg up from the rally that began this past November.  If that is the case buying the March OEX puts will not work.  The price action early next week will be the key.  Gold continues to be dead money and the gold shares are getting crushed.  Why would anybody purchase calls in the gold shares at this point?  March is historically the worst performing month for the precious metal.  Sometimes you have to do the opposite of the crowd to be successful.  I'm not saying that this ABX April call trade will work out.  But when all the technicals are very oversold, there is no better time to give it a try.  Unless the gold shares are going to crash, I don't see much more downside from here.  But I could be wrong and often am.  I'll be going over all the charts this weekend to be ready to resume trading on Monday.  For now it's Friday afternoon and time for a break.