The market had a gap higher at the open and took off to the upside.  The Dow gained 211 points on heavy volume.  The advance/declines were almost 3 to 1 positive.  The summation index is back to moving up.  The overall market was stronger than the Dow, with the NASDAQ leading the way.  The Dow was up more than 400 points in the morning but gradually sold off the rest of the day.  My order for the SPY May puts was filled when the market opened and I immediately regretted the decision.  Had I waited I could have gotten a better strike price for the same amount of money.  Once again my trading skill wasn't up to the task of the SPY.  This trade is showing a small loss but it could be worse than that.  I did however want to be short going into the jobs report and at least that was accomplished.  But I don't have a good feeling about this idea now.  There's no reason for the market to rally like it did as new claims for unemployment remain in the millions.  The market always knows more than we do.  GE was up 1/8 on good volume.  Gold took off to the upside with the futures gaining almost forty bucks.  The US dollar was lower.  The XAU was up 4 3/8, while GDX added 1 1/3.  Volume was light but there are no sellers.  I canceled my open order for the GDX May calls as it was not close to getting filled.  Obviously I should have remained focused on the gold shares as the up trend is clearly in place there.  Overbought for weeks on end there and way above both the 50 and 200 day moving averages.  This can't last forever but who knows?  Maybe it will.  Mentally I'm feeling OK.  The VIX almost made it down to touch the lower Bollinger band and remains oversold.  I was certainly surprised by the market strength today ahead of what seemingly is sure to be a horrible jobs number tomorrow.  But as always it's not the news but the markets reaction to it that counts.  Still, I can't see a rally on the back of what will be the worst unemployment rate since the mortgage meltdown.  If I'm lucky, I'll be able to get out of the SPY May put trade with a small profit and head back to the drawing board.  the entry was already lousy, so I'll have to see if I can do better on the exit.  Unless we see a huge decline tomorrow it will probably be best to get out of this trade before the weekend.  That's the idea at the moment.  Asia was mixed and Europe higher in last nights trading action.  We'll look for the jobs report early and close out the trading week tomorrow.