The Dow rising only 19 points today does not tell the story as the overall market was much higher.  The advance/declines were almost 3 to 1 positive and the volume was average.  The small stocks and the S&P 500 were considerably higher.  The summation index has turned back to the upside.  Do we try and trade a move back to test the lows?  What if there is no retest and this is a V bottom?  Plenty of questions as usual.  I think that if we get to short term overbought on the technical indicators later this week, I'll try the November OEX puts.  If not, then I will look to buy the November calls at some point during this option cycle.  That is the game plan at the moment.  GE was up almost 1/4 on average volume.  I still like the March calls here and will look to pick some up on a pullback.  Gold rose $5 on the futures today.  The US dollar Was lower on the session.  The XAU gained 1 1/2.  ABX, GG and NEM all had fractional gains on lighter volume.  Gold itself is short term overbought here and the gold shares did not go along for the ride.  No trades here for now.  Mentally I'm feeling OK.  The Dow was held back today by a huge loss in IBM.  The other major stock indices are bouncing nicely.  Waiting for the next set up here basically.  Perhaps by the end of the week.  The ideal scenario is to keep moving higher on light volume to set up the OEX puts.  Gold has had a nice bounce but the fundamentals there are still negative and could be for a while.  No such rally in the gold shares but they did stop moving lower.  Patience could be the best idea there.  we'll see what happens in the overseas markets tonight and take it from there.