Well, so much for a quiet summer.  The Dow came back today, up 123 points on lighter volume for expiration Friday.  The advance/declines were over 4 to 1 positive.  Volatility has returned as it has been a crazy couple of days.  What's it all mean is the question to be answered.  I wish I knew.  The summation index continues lower but we have really only moved sideways in the major stock indices.  I'm beginning to think that the August OEX puts are not going to be a good idea.  Oh I've got plenty of time to change my mind again.  We will really have to see how the breadth goes from here.  If it remains weak as it has been lately, then the puts may work.  If not, we could be going back to all time highs again.  GE was off 1/8 and the volume was heavy.  GE did move off of its lows as the earnings report wasn't greeted especially well.  Not sure what that means going forward.  Gold backed off $7 on the futures but came off of its lows as well.  The US dollar ended little changed and is short term overbought.  The XAU only fell 1/2.  ABX and NEM were flat, while GG had a fractional loss.  Volume was light.  The gold shares began the day lower and then found buyers for the remainder of the session.  I'm still looking at the October gold share calls which have three months of time now left on them.  ABX is the recent out performer of the big 3.  Mentally I'm feeling OK.  The small stock out performed today and that is a plus.  The coming days will tell if this was just an oversold bounce or the beginning of the next leg up.  Plus it is hard to say how much of todays price action was expiration related.  I'll check the charts over the weekend.  Gold started the week lower but did manage a comeback.  The question is where would gold be if that plane hadn't been shot down?  The gold shares are doing pretty good regardless.  The gold shares are overbought on the weekly charts and the earnings are due in less than two weeks.  So some more thought will have to be put in on exactly what to do here.  Plenty of things to think about over the weekend.  The trading is always a challenge and that is something that remains a constant.  It's a summer Friday afternoon and time for a break.