Pretty much a drift higher on a quiet Friday summer afternoon.  The Dow rose 46 points on light volume.  The advance/declines were 2 to 1 positive.  We are getting a move back to the upside that should give an opportunity to purchase some September OEX puts.  If that is the proper play.  The stock indexes are trying to hold on here and they might.  After todays price action we should be closer to the zero line in the McClellan oscillator.  The small stocks are acting better than the big caps.  That is usually a positive.  There are down trend lines in place for the major indices.  The small caps on the other hand have simply moved sideways.  But we are still in a danger zone of collapse according to the summation index.  The zero line there looms.  GE was flat on the day and the volume was very light.  No trades there for now.  Gold broke out of the week long consolidation to the upside.  The futures jumped $25.  The US dollar was a bit weaker.  The XAU rose 3 points.  ABX and GG were up 1/2, while NEM tacked on 7/8.  Volume was about average.  I don't know how much longer the rally in the gold shares can go on.  It has been a nice run up since the beginning of July.  Just about overbought on the weekly charts though.  I am really going to have to think about taking the profit in the October ABX call trade.  Mentally I'm feeling OK.  As always the question is what happens next in the stock indices.  The ideal scenario would be to get back to the down trend line in the S&P 500 at 1680 on light volume and get some puts.  If we break to the upside from there, you take the small loss.  If we drop from there it will be big.  Some economic data out next week but it is the last week of summer and the major players will still be on vacation.  Gold has made it to $1400 and a pause would not be a surprise here.  Short term overbought and getting there medium term.  No negative divergences in place that I can see.  Ditto for the gold shares.  Plenty to think about over the weekend.  A lot of charts to check out as well.  For now it's Friday afternoon and time for a break.