The market declined in the final hour today and the Dow had a loss of 205 points on light volume.  The advance/declines were slightly negative.  The summation index is moving sideways.  Just waiting on the Fed here is what it feels like.  I'm not sure what the fed can say that will get things going higher but you never know.  Contracting Bollinger bands do portend that something is about to happen in a big way.  Indices are moving sideways but is it a topping process or consolidation before hitting new post February crash highs for the S&P?  There's still plenty of time in the August option cycle for profits one way or the other.  I'm still leaning towards the downside as I'm betting against the quickest bear market in S&P 500 history.  I could be wrong.  GE was up over 1/8 and the volume was a little better.  Gold had a wild ride overnight and the futures finished with a gain of over $10.  The US dollar ended little changed.  The XAU and GDX had fractional losses on what passes now as average volume.  I'm looking at both the puts and the calls here.  Money continues to pour into gold but it cannot keep going straight up forever.  Last nights swing between $1900 and $1980 on the futures was probably a warning sign that things are about to change.  Or not and that is the quandary that we find ourselves in when trading the markets.  Mentally I'm feeling OK.  The VIX ticked higher with the final hour drop in equities.  We're still oversold on both a daily and weekly basis here.  I'm not exactly sure which way to go here so I'll probably just stay on the sidelines until things start to become clearer to me.  I would like to try the GDX August puts ahead of the GDP report but the option premiums remain high.  Not to mention that gold seems to be on an unstoppable bull run as it has hit all time highs.  But we know that won't last forever.  The contraction Bollinger bands on the SPY are probably pointing to something.  I just don't know yet what that is.  Europe and Asia were slightly lower in last nights trade.  All eyes and ears on the Fed for Wednesday.