Back to the upside today as the Dow gained 54 points on light volume.  The advance/declines were slightly positive.  We will see if the decline has been contained to what has happened early this week or if it is something for real.  The next couple of days will tell the story.  The summation index is still heading lower.  My September OEX puts are all but dead at this point.  GE was up a nickel and the volume remains light.  Hanging around the 50 and 200 day moving averages.  Gold was down a few bucks again on the futures today as the US dollar was little changed.  The XAU fell 1 1/3.  ABX, GG and NEM all had fractional losses on light volume.  Same story for gold and the gold shares.  The trend is down and the fundamentals are negative.  Technically oversold and staying there.  Mentally I'm feeling tired, did not sleep well again.  Seven days to go in the September option cycle.  If the stock indices are going to have a decent decline, we'll have to see some downside within the next two days.  Otherwise I believe that we will trend up to new highs in expiration week.  All of my outstanding option positions are losers.  I will have to book the losses soon.  We haven't seen much volatility since after Labor day and that wasn't expected by me.  The light volume remains troublesome by my standards.  However we haven't seen the decline that I expected.  The foreign markets didn't really react to yesterdays decline in the Dow.  We'll follow the overnight action and take it from there.