A sell off and a comeback today for most of the stock indices.  The Dow fell 63 points on average volume.  The advance/declines were slightly negative.  The summation index is still moving higher but again not as strong as it was.  The Dow was off almost 300 points in the morning but buying came in especially in the final half hour.  The Dow is hanging around its 200 day moving average.  The S&P 500 along with the NASDAQ managed to eek out small gains.  I'm not exactly bearish here as whatever decline we get here will be short lived and shallow in my view.  I still favor the SPY February calls on weakness early next week.  Tuesday would be my preferred day to purchase but it may already be too late.  I'll consider my choices over the weekend.  GE lost 1/4 on continues heavy volume.  Getting some selling here as you can't expect any stock to just keep going straight up.  Gold was up a few bucks on the futures as the US dollar was only slightly higher.  The XAU was up a point and GDX rose 1/3 on good volume.  The flag pattern here on the daily chart for GDX may still be intact with a potential run to 23 in the works before expiration.  That's a guess on my part.  Mentally I'm feeling OK.  I think that the game plan for next week is set and it's just a matter of time to see what happens.  My guess is that things will be positive for stocks with option expiration at the end of the week.  Barring some headline that changes things of course.  We are still short term overbought for stocks but that doesn't mean that we can't move higher next week.  We should see more economic data released along with what's left of earnings.  We'll also probably find out if the US government is going to close again.  A positive resolution there should move stocks higher.  So we'll see.  I certainly don't want to get confident about anything.  Europe and Asia were both lower to end the week.  It's Friday afternoon and time for a break.