We began the day with a quick 100 point drop and spent the rest of the session trying to recover.  The Dow fell 45 points on light volume.  The advance/declines were negative.  The summation index has tried to turn back up but it is grinding lower.  The positive expiration week bias did not manifest itself.  The short term technical indicators for the S&P 500 remain overbought.  Any selling has been met with buyers lately.  When volatility arrives it quickly is vanquished.  This has been one of the slowest trading summers in recent years.  The sidelines has not been a bad place.  GE was off over 1/8 on light volume.  Still hanging around in the vicinity of its 50 day moving average.  Gold was off around a dozen on the futures as the US dollar was higher.  The XAU was down 3 points, while GDX shed 3/4.  Volume was pretty light.  Gold has yet to have the positive seasonal bias for August/September kick in.  Mentally I'm feeling OK.  I am looking at the SPY September puts but I can't be predisposed to that trade.  The market has had ample opportunity to fall here technically and it keeps coming back.  We are having a problem getting back up through the zero line on the McClellan oscillator.  However if we can clear that hurdle, higher prices will be in the forecast.  I thought that we would hit new all time highs by expiration and that was wrong.  This is really a frustrating summer doldrums type atmosphere and has been for weeks.  Eventually we will break out of it but I certainly don't know when.  Perhaps when all the players return after Labor day.  But the market will go and do what it wants regardless.  We'll get some economic data out next week but not a lot.  We're also moving into the September option cycle and premiums will be high.  So from here it looks like sitting things out will be the prudent course of action.  Or inaction.  Europe and Asia were lower overnight but the NIKK had a slight gain.  I'll be going over the charts this weekend as usual.  For now it's Friday afternoon and time for a rest.