Another interesting session today as the Dow fell 79 points on light volume.  The advance/declines were 2 to 1 negative.  the summation index is moving lower.  Once again the market opened much lower only to find its way higher for the rest of the session.  the jobs numbers were better than expected but the tariff headlines continues to dominate the ongoing market theme.  The short term technical indicators for the S&P along with the small stocks have rolled over.  We aren't completely oversold yet and the decline has been orderly for now.  We could completely reverse next week because some kind of upside is overdue.  My SPY September puts are showing a small gain.  I may have to dump them early next week and then try and buy them back cheaper.  The daily VIX is getting overbought but we did manage to close above the 200 day moving average for a change.  The underlying market has been weaker than the Dow lately and that is not a positive sign.  However the point decline hasn't been much for stocks and I'm not exactly sure just what that means.  GE was off 1/8 on average volume.  Gold dropped a couple bucks on the futures as the US dollar was higher along with US interest rates.  The XAU and GDX had very slight fractional gains on average volume.  Perhaps some safe haven buying there today because the economic data wasn't positive for the precious metal.  Mentally I'm feeling OK.  Most major stock indices declined this week but we haven't seen anything go over a cliff.  With the summation index heading down the trend is lower.  There's still two weeks to go in the September option cycle, so there's plenty of time for the index puts to work.  The small stock indexes are getting near their 50 day moving averages, which have held the most recent previous declines.  I'm keeping a close eye on what happens there because it will have meaning for the rest of the marketplace.  I may be wrong about an extended decline here because all attempts so far for a big drop in stocks has been met with buying.  We'll see if that holds up next week as well and it just might.  It depends on what kind of news pops up this weekend.  Regardless of that most stock index charts have short term down trends on them now.  But like I said before, there hasn't been any panic yet and buyers have showed up when needed.  Next week should be interesting as well.  Europe and Asia were mixed overnight as they try to put a halt to the recent declines.  It's Friday afternoon and time for a break.