We closed out the month with a gain as the Dow rose 96 points on about average volume.  The advance/declines were positive.  The summation index is trending lower but not at a rapid rate.  We finished off of the best levels for the session.  I still considered buying some SPY October calls today but we never got any weakness.  I suppose it's back to the sidelines to wait for another signal.  The short term indicators do appear to want to turn back up here.  Nobody is looking at a run to new all time highs here and usually the market does what you least expect.  I'm not sure if I have the guts to get long here though.  GE was off a dime on light volume.  Gold dropped today as the futures lost over $25.  Near term support has been violated and the next support comes in at around $1450/$1425.  A small head and shoulders top has been validated with todays price action.  The US dollar was higher.  The XAU shed 2 2/3, while GDX lost 3/4.  Volume was good.  GDX is not completely short term oversold yet but more action like today will get it there.  I'm now looking out to the GDX January calls as that would give the trade plenty of time to work.  GDX also looks like it could have a head and shoulders top formation but it hasn't been triggered yet.  Near term support is at 26.  If that doesn't hold we could go back to 24 and then 23.  I'm still long term bullish on gold whatever happens here.  Mentally I'm feeling OK.  The VIX looks like it could be putting in a short term top here and that would be bullish for stocks.  It is another reason why I still favor the SPY October calls here.  The major stock indices are short term oversold and I would expect some kind of bounce besides what we've seen from the lows during Fridays session.  We do have the employment report due at the end of the week.  It's possible that we'll be on hold until then as well.  I may still buy near term weakness but that isn't set in stone.  The more prudent path could be to wait things out here for a better signal as I have already stated.  I might put in an order for the GDX January calls and simply wait to see if the market comes to it.  There isn't any rush there because it looks like gold still has some more to fall to meet the measuring objective of the head and shoulders top.  Asia was lower with the exception of Hong Kong.  Europe traded higher.  We'll begin the month of October tomorrow.