It was a rather quiet, mixed session as the Dow fell 11 points on light volume.  The advance/declines were positive.  The summation index is moving sideways.  The overall market was slightly better than the Dow.  The short term technical indicators have turned back up for the Dow.  The VIX got to 15.25 today and we are at the moment of truth next week for the stock market in my opinion.  If the VIX breaks the 15 level next week and stays there, we could be in for some type of sustained rally.  I don't know if that will happen but I have to be open to the possibility.  I'm still a believer in the bearish side here and I will be buying some SPY May puts on a break below 15 on the VIX.  But I also know that it could be the wrong move.  Hopefully I'll manage the trade better than I have with my other trades lately.  We'll see.  GE was flat on the session and the volume was light.  Gold gained $6 as the US dollar was flat.  The XAU and GDX had slight fractional gains on light volume.  Rates dropped today with TNX closing below 3%.  Mentally I'm feeling OK.  Three weeks to go in the May option cycle.  I don't exactly have a clear cut signal on which way to go here yet.  I did place an order today for the SPY May puts but it wasn't filled.  I placed the order at the price I was willing to pay if the VIX got below 15.  What I don't want to do here is simply blindly follow that idea because this time it just may not work.  I'd rather see more of a better overbought technical situation on the S&P in order to place that trade.  We could it but it would be on Tuesday or Wednesday depending on how the trading week begins.  We'll have the end of the month Monday, with May starting up on Tuesday.  It will be a week that also has the Fed announcement on Wednesday followed by the employment report on Friday.  Along with other economic data along with earnings to boot.  So it will be quite a week to watch and there will be trading opportunities out there.  But which way are we going to go?  I'll be double checking all the charts and indicators over the weekend because I really think that the time is now.  There will be market movement next week.  It is possible that things will stall heading into the Fed announcement and that is something to take into consideration as well.  Plenty to ponder in the next two days.  Europe and Asia were both higher overnight.  It's Friday afternoon and time for a break.