Back and forth as we move on whatever headline comes out or whoever gives a speech.  China had nice things to say last night and the Dow rose 428 points on average volume.  The advance/declines were 3 to 1 positive.  The summation index is still basically moving sideways.  It hasn't broken out one way or the other.  It is a frustrating market for traders as we cannot get things going either way.  Only eight days left for the April option cycle.  My SPY April calls are still big losers and I'm still waiting for some kind of run up to the 2700 on the S&P 500.  Wishful thinking on my part.  GE was up 1/4 on what now passes for average volume.  Holding on to the $13 level for now.  Earnings due on expiration Friday next week.  Gold was up a bit and the US dollar was down a bit.  The XAU and GDX had fractional gains on average volume.  Mentally I'm feeling OK.  The head of FB is speaking to Congress today.  The stock rallied.  That helped move the small stocks higher.  As I said yesterday, todays trading session was important given the final hour collapse on Monday.  Things have held up for now.  But tomorrow could be a completely different story.  No moves can be trusted at this point.  We're still in what I'd call a sideways malaise until proven otherwise.  The short term technical indicators for the major averages are back to mid-range.  So once again things could go either way.  I'm not holding my breath one way or the other.  A plus today was that the volume picked up going higher.  But one day doesn't make a trend.  Another threat of tariffs or something else out of Washington will produce another tailspin.  We're at the mercy of the news and that is not the best way to attempt to trade.  We will start to get some earnings next week but it remains to be seen how the market will react.  Some of the small cap indices have moved past their short term down trend lines.  But none of the major averages have yet to do so.  If that would occur, things would turn bullish again.  However it hasn't happened and we'll need to see a high volume breakout for anything to be valid.  Or we turn back down again and look to see if the 200 day moving average continues to hold.  That's where we're at.  Europe and Asia were higher in last nights trade.  We'll keep an eye on the overnight developments.