Somewhat of a holding pattern today but we did bounce around a lot.  The Dow rose 37 points on good volume.  The advance/declines were negative.  The summation index continues lower.  The overall market was weaker than the Dow.  There isn't any doubt in my mind that we're heading lower but near term strength is expected.  Some of my indicators are indicating that we are short term oversold.  Even if we are lower tomorrow, I expect some type of rise at the beginning of next week.  If we're up tomorrow I may have to change that prognosis.  I've got an open order in for some SPY February puts but it will take a rally for the order to get filled.  Anybody who is paying attention can see the change that we have in market action recently.  The days of simply heading higher everyday are over in my opinion.  I do think that the February index puts will work.  GE was off over 1/8 on good volume but less than we have seen lately.  The $16 continues to hold for now.  Gold was up over $10 on the futures as the US dollar was lower.  This occurred despite a rise in US interest rates.  I'm not sure this inverse relationship can last forever and I certainly don't know why it is happening.  The XAU and GDX finished the session flat on light volume.  Mentally I'm feeling OK.  Still a little over two weeks to go in the February option cycle.  Attempting a trade here will be tricky because the nature of things has changed.  Volatility has returned and the trading must be done in a faster mode that I haven't done in a while.  I'll take my cues here from the summation index and it is pointing towards lower prices.  At the rate things are going at this point, I won't be entering a trade until next week.  We've got AAPL after the bell and the jobs report tomorrow morning.  Ideally we'll see a rally that carries over into Monday.  If we just head down tomorrow, I may have to rethink the February SPY puts because we will have already moved too low perhaps.  As usual it's a fluid situation.  But I do still believe that rallies can be shorted for now.  Asia was closed or lower while Europe was down.  Looks like Apple missed estimates.  We'll see what tomorrow brings.