Another mixed bag to begin the month of August as the Dow fell 27 points on light volume.  The advance/declines were negative.  The summation index continues sideways.  The NASDAQ moved higher as the small stocks continue to outperform.  The summer doldrums are in full swing.  The short term technical indicators for the big caps are trying to roll over.  Not much else to report today.  waiting on Fridays jobs report.  GE was flat and the volume was lighter.  Oversold on the indicators here.  Gold was up a couple bucks on the futures today and the US dollar was a bit higher.  The XAU added 1 1/3, while GDX rose 1/3.  Volume was good.  We are now in the positive seasonal time period for gold.  However we are already back to overbought on the short term techncials.  Mentally I'm feeling OK.  August hasn't been a good month for stocks lately.  We'll see how that unfolds this year.  There's still plenty of time to make a trade in the August option cycle.  I'm still looking at the SPY puts here at some point.  With the low volatility, I'm going to have to wait for some type of rise in prices before attempting to go short.  We'll see.  Asia was higher and Europe lower overnight.  We'll keep an eye on the overnight developments.