Higher today as the Dow rose 56 points on average volume.  The advance/declines were positive.  The summation index is still moving up.  The overall market was stronger than the Dow but I don't know if this qualifies for the move expected from the McClellan oscillator signal.  My SPY October puts were almost stopped out today.  Another positive session like today and they will be.  The RUT soared today and that is a plus for the bulls.  It looks like a valid breakout there.  Perhaps my thinking is wrong here again.  The short term technical indicators for the small stocks have turned back up.  Perhaps we'll see a short squeeze tomorrow.  GE was off a bit over 1/2 on heavy volume.  Perhaps I'll get another shot at the longer term calls there.  Gold dropped $15 on the futures as the US dollar continues to rise.  Rates have started to rise and that is not a plus for gold.  The XAU shed 1 1/8, while GDX lost 1/3.  Volume was average.  Mentally I'm still feeling tired due to not sleeping well lately.  Perhaps this is the beginning of the speculative blow off top.  That's a guess as usual and I have nothing to back it up except the breakout in RUT.  The VIX has come back down and what is usually a weak seasonal time period hasn't produced the decline as expected.  There is still a lot of time left in the October option cycle but the way things are going it feels more like a breakout is about to occur rather than a breakdown.  I'm still considering moving to a different strike price if I do get stopped out tomorrow.  We'll probably see end of the month and quarter market moves in the next two days as well.  I'll consider what action to take for tomorrow as I watch the overnight SPX futures.  Asia was mixed and Europe higher in last nights trade.  We'll see what tomorrow brings.