Volatility reigns as we started off the month with a one day reversal to the upside.  The Dow gained 196 points on heavy volume.  The advance/declines were almost 3 to 1 positive.  Today was probably the day to buy the SPY February calls.  I did have an order in overnight but it was not filled.  I'll be looking to get something on any weakness in the next few days before the employment report but it might already be too late.  The short term technical indicators are already moving up.  I'm not at 100% physically yet and I suppose I can blame the missed chance on that.  But there are no excuses in this game.  GE was up 1/3 on OK volume.  My GE March calls here are still losers.  Gold fell a couple bucks on the futures as the US dollar was a bit lower as well.  The XAU was up a point while GDX was flat.  I'm guessing gold is due for a breather here.  USO was up again but I would not call this a rally there just yet.  Mentally I'm still a little slow.  A positive turnaround for stocks today and the final hour saw a good jump and that is bullish.  A bigger look at things says this can still be considered a consolidation of the rally that occurred in Oct/Nov.  That is still my point of view.  You could think that the market is just trying to hold on before it collapses beneath the recent lows.  That is another way to look at things here.  But I'm sticking with a bullish resolution and will try and get some SPY February calls.  I need to get some more rest.  We'll see if the foreign markets follow the Dow higher overnight.