Running in place ahead of the jobs numbers as the Dow rose 9 points on almost average volume.  The advance/declines were slightly negative.  The summation index continues lower.  The market can't get anything going to the upside despite the oversold condition.  That usually spells trouble for the bulls.  I'd still like to try the SPY May puts but will have to see some kind of short covering bounce first.  Still a little over 2 weeks left in the May option cycle.  The risk is that we have reached a short term trading bottom and we see a rise back to the 2100 level for the S&P 500.  The decline has been orderly so far with no panic.  That is why I think we still have room to go lower.  The 50 day moving average has held things so far for the S&P 500.  GE was off 18 cents on average volume.  Oversold here as well.  Gold was up $5 on the futures despite a rise in the US dollar.  The XAU was up 1 7'8, while GDX added 3/4.  Volume was good.  Probably just a bounce here after 3 days of decline.  That's a guess as usual.  We could get some movement in gold off of the employment report tomorrow.  Mentally I'm feeling OK.  Once again there was a chance today to buy the SPY May calls for a bounce but I remained on the sidelines.  Perhaps the last losing trade is still affecting me going forward.  Anything could happen tomorrow.  I've been waiting for some decent move to the upside to buy the puts but the market hasn't cooperated.  The tone is still negative with the small stocks leading the way down here.  The TRAN was negative today as well.  All rallies in the general market have been sold recently.  We really haven't seen anything positive for the market in the past couple of weeks.  All I can do now is hope for some upside to get short.  If we panic out to the downside, I'll have to try and trade the bounce.  That's about all I've got at the moment.  Foreign markets were mixed overnight.  We'll see how things go with the jobs report tomorrow.