The market begins the week on the plus side as the Dow gained 357 points on average volume.  The advance/declines were better than 2 to 1 positive.  The summation index is now moving up.  The Dow was stronger than the overall market with the NASDAQ in the red again.  No breaking news although over the weekend there were some executive orders signed by the president in lieu of no deal on the US stimulus package.  Still overbought and perhaps my idea here for the SPY August puts is simply wrong.  The ones I own are showing a loss.  I did try to move up a couple strike prices for some more of the puts but the order wasn't filled.  Not sure if I'll try this again tomorrow.  I am pretty confident of at least some kind of short term decline in the very near future.  Hence the August put position.  But who knows?  Maybe we just remain very overbought until option expiration.  GE was up 1/4 on good volume.  Gold was up over ten bucks on the August futures.  The US dollar was slightly higher.  The XAU was off 1 1/8, while GDX dropped 1/3.  Volume was light.  Once again the gold shares are underperforming and that isn't bullish.  Not completely oversold on a short term basis for the gold shares.  I'll be looking at the calls here when we get there.  Mentally I'm feeling OK.  The VIX bounced around and finished a touch lower today.  The Bollinger bands are starting to contract and we know what that means.  I'm pretty sure that we'll see a rise in the VIX and a drop in stocks very soon.  Whether or not I can trade it successfully if that does occur is another question.  I suppose that we'll find out this week.  One of the pandemic virus stocks that I was looking at, SRNE, has taken off to the upside.  It certainly would have worked to buy the August calls there or even the stock outright.  Juts another missed opportunity.  HOLX which I was also looking at has dropped in the past week after the earnings rally.  I will look to try the calls there for the next earnings cycle in a couple of months.  For now I'll continue the focus on the SPY and whether or not to try a higher strike price tomorrow.  Asia was mixed with Europe slightly higher overnight.  We'll see how things go tomorrow.