It was a one day reversal to the upside as the Dow opened lower and somehow closed higher.  The most watched index gained 260 points on good volume.  The advance/declines were positive.  The summation index is still heading lower.  The Dow was off over 600 points at its lowest today and somehow made it all the way back and then some.  Encouraging price action for the bulls no doubt but it is still a down trend and bear market in my opinion.  The market is taking on a life of its own here, with no news to account for the wild price swings.  My SPY January calls have made it back to break even.  A holiday miracle to be sure.  If we can somehow get the summation index turned around, this trade could actually work.  But that hasn't happened yet and we could be down 100 points tomorrow in this kind of environment.  GE lost 1/8 and the volume remains heavy.  Only two days of tax loss selling left here.  Gold was up around five bucks as the US dollar was lower.  The XAU and GDX had fractional gains on average volume.  Mentally I'm feeling OK.  Quite a turnaround week for stocks so far but we do have to get through Friday.  I don't think that we're about to start a sustained new uptrend here after the pummeling that the market has taken in the past few weeks.  I'm hoping the S&P can stay afloat into the beginning of the year so I can dump my ill timed calls.  But perhaps I should just get rid of them and start the new year fresh.  Always plenty of decisions to make in this game.  I think I'll wait to see how it goes tomorrow and take it from there.  If we can get the summation index turned around my opinion will be that the decline has ended for now.  But it hasn't happened yet.  Asia was higher with the exception of Hong Kong and Europe lower in last nights trade.  We'll close out the holiday week tomorrow.