The expected upside appeared today despite the US government shutdown as the Dow gained 62 points on OK volume.  The advance/declines were over 2 to 1 positive.  The overall market was stronger than the Dow and the small stocks continue to lead the way.  That's all bullish going forward.  The summation index will be back to heading higher after today.  Another positive session tomorrow will have the technicals rolling back to the upside for the major stock indices.  The market always knows more than us.  Obviously the conventional wisdom of a government shutdown being bearish for stocks this time around is wrong.  GE was up 1/4 on light volume.  The 50 day moving average has held for now.  Gold got clobbered today as the futures lost $40.  I have no idea where that came from.  The US dollar was slightly lower.  If gold can't hold the $1275 level it will be heading back down to $1200.  The XAU dropped 2 points which wasn't so bad considering the drop in gold itself.  ABX, GG and NEM were all down around 2/3 or so on better volume.  I'm still considering the November ABX calls.  However after todays developments, I'm not so sure.  My October ABX calls are almost dead.  Mentally I'm feeling OK.  I still expect to see higher prices near term for the stock indexes.  Until we see the smaller stocks lead the way down, there probably won't be any major decline in stock prices.  That's my best guess at the moment.  Gold had a rough day.  Of course you want to buy when everyone else is selling but you have to wait for the selling to end.  I've been wrong on gold quite a lot this year.  Perhaps gold from the long side is simply a dead trade from here on out.  That's a guess as usual and I'm not sure if it's a good one.  Technically gold is about to have the death cross of the 50 day moving average heading down through the 200 day moving average.  The gold shares had this occur many months ago.  The relative strength of the gold shares vs. gold has been positive lately.  So perhaps the November ABX call trade could be profitable.  We'll watch what happens overnight and go from there.