A summer doldrums type of day as the Dow rose 29 points on pretty light volume.  The advance/declines were barely positive.  The summation index continues lower.  The market was mixed with the NASDAQ lower.  The VIX is moving lower and my hope is that it continues on that path for the rest of the week.  I'd still like to purchase some SPY September puts within the next week or so.  Ideally a week from today.  But the market rarely cooperates.  GE was off a few cents and the volume was pretty good.  Still no love for GE.  Gold was up five bucks on the futures.  The US dollar was lower.  The XAU added 1 1/2, while GDX gained 1/3 on average volume.  It doesn't appear that I'll get a chance for the longer term gold share calls.  Just another missed trade.  Mentally I'm feeling a bit tired, did not sleep well.  Patience will be the key here as we have moved into the September option cycle and it's the last two weeks of summer.  Thin trading will be the norm in my opinion.  I will try and wait for a decent technical signal.  At the moment the major stock averages remain short term oversold and a rise of some sort is due at any time this week.  If we can make it back up to the 2465 level on the S&P, that would be the time to purchase the index puts.  We'll just have to wait and see.  Asia was mixed and Europe lower overnight.  We'll see how tomorrow goes but expect more of the same.  Slow trading and light volume barring some kind of unexpected event.