The employment report came and went and we are still in a sideways pattern of indecision.  The Dow fell 28 points on average volume.  The advance/declines were 2 to 1 negative.  We did come off of the lows for the session.  The summation index is still moving down.  There's still no resolution to which way we're going to break out here.  A lot of the short term technical indicators for the major indices remain mid-range.  We did have a British pound flash crash overnight and the market shrugged that off.  I'm still a believer in higher prices eventually but the timing is far from certain.  GE fell about 20 cents on better volume.  This issue has been lower since mid July and is not offering any overall support to the market at this time.  Gold was up $5 on the futures and the US dollar was a bit lower.  The XAU and GDX had slight fractional moves one way or the other on average volume.  The jobs report was slightly less than anticipated but offered nothing in the way of moving gold much higher.  Mentally I'm doing OK.  We waited for the employment report but we still have no clarity in the stock market.  I'm not sure what the issue is.  I don't think it's the upcoming presidential election in the US.  The next interest rate move won't be until December, if at all.  Perhaps it's the fear of some kind of October collapse but these things never happen when everyone is looking for one.  So I'll simply continue to wait it out.  When we get oversold, I'll look to the SPY calls.  If we move up to get to be overbought, I'll look to the SPY puts.  At this point going out to November seems to have to the prudent choice.  The market will move at its own pace.  There will be some economic data due next week but not a lot.  Europe and Asia were generally lower overnight.  I'll be checking the charts over the weekend but the plan of waiting for a decent signal should remain intact.  For now it's Friday afternoon and time for a break.