A positive end to the week as the Dow gained 196 points on expiration Friday.  The advance/declines were about 5 to 1 positive and the volume was heavy.  The summation index is still heading lower but another day like today and we'll be back to sideways there.  I can't make out what is going on here and I'm not going to try.  We were short term oversold on the stock indices after yesterdays action and a bounce was due.  What happens from here will determine if the decline continues or perhaps some type of rally will start.  You can make a case that we are in a sideways consolidation following the rally in October but that is yet to be seen.  Todays price action does stop the decline for a day at least.  GE was basically flat on the session and volume was heavy.  I assumed the earnings were coming due today since they usually arrive on the third Friday in January but they are out next week.  So I suppose I'll be holding the GE March call trade until then at least.  Gold was up another 12 bucks on the futures for its best week in a while.  This despite another rise in the US dollar.  The XAU added 2 1/3 and GDX rose 2/3.  Volume was heavy once again here for the gold shares.  Overbought and staying there so there is no denying the strength that we are seeing here.  I'm guessing that pullbacks will be bought here for the near term future.  USO was up around 7/8 and perhaps oil is finding a resting place finally.  Mentally I'm feeling OK.  A holiday weekend for the US on tap.  The February option cycle also has an extra week on it.  So I suppose there is certainly no hurry to do anything right now.  My ideas and trading have been way off to start the year and we are only halfway through the first month.  Perhaps now we'll see the rally to new highs that I was looking for after most of the January index calls were clobbered.  There may be enough fear out there to get something going in a positive direction.  But who knows?  I haven't done anything correctly lately.  Gold and the gold shares have broken out but it really looks like it is too late to do anything there.  Maybe it's time to look at the USO long trade again.  Or perhaps the sidelines might be the place for me after the rough start.  Plenty to think about in the next three days.  I'll be checking the charts as usual.  Perhaps I'll have to wait and see how the GE trade pans out before trying some thing else.  It's Friday afternoon and time for a break.