The trading day seemed like the market was stuck in limbo but the Dow did manage a gain of 100 points on heavy volume.  The advance/declines were slightly positive.  The summation index is moving lower.  It was a mixed bag with the NASDAQ posting a loss.  Unlike yesterday, it was a back and forth affair with huge swings.  There was a dip out of the range in the afternoon but the market recovered.  It has the feel of just waiting for the next drop to come.  I finally did sell my SPY August puts in the morning.  I didn't get the best price on the day but I wasn't going to wait around either.  The gain was 220% and I was lucky to get that.  2 days ago this trade was a 50% loser.  I am simply better with longer term time frames on the options.  GE got slammed today on news of accounting irregularities.  It dropped a buck which was over a 10% loss on the day.  Volume was extremely heavy.  Gold added $6 on the futures and the US dollar was a bit higher as well.  The XAU was up almost a point, while GDX rose 1/3.  Volume was average.  There seems to be no stopping the gold shares as they have remained overbought for 2 1/2 months.  Yes I'd like to own some gold share calls but no I'm not going to chase them here.  Maybe I should though.  Mentally I'm feeling OK.  The VIX had a rise and fall today and remains over 20.  As long as it holds above 16 in my mind the volatility will remain elevated.  I still believe that there's something brewing under the surface of the market that is causing the decline that we're seeing at the moment.  Players are running to safety when there is no apparent reason to at the levels we've seen.  Yes there is a trade war and yes growth is slowing down a bit.  But I think the problem is beyond that when you have debt around the world that doesn't even yield anything and is actually costing you money to buy.  That makes no investing sense whatsoever.  But here we are.  Something has to give sooner or later and perhaps we're on the cusp of that.  For the S&P we're still oversold and the indicators are trying to turn back up again.  We're also in the process of testing the recent lows.  I don't think that they will hold but who knows?  We did get a potential positive divergence on the McClellan oscillator last night so perhaps there is some upside coming.  Hasn't happened yet.  Europe and Asia were lower overnight but Hong Kong bucked the trend.  We'll get option expiration tomorrow to close out the trading week.