The rally took a breather today as the Dow lost 167 points on heavy volume. The advance/declines were positive. The summation index continues higher. No real news to speak of today just time to take some profits. The short term technical picture remains the same with the S&P 500 along with the other major stock indices remaining overbought. I still expect more buying ahead of option expiration and the upcoming holiday week. Transactions will be completed this week and then I expect the market to go to sleep for a week during Thanksgiving. I could be wrong but probably not this time. GE was up about a dime on average volume. This issue needs a rest as well. Gold was off around six bucks on the futures as the US dollar was a bit lower as well. The XAU lost 2 1/8, while GDX shed around 3/4. Volume remains light for the gold shares. My open order for the GDX January calls remains out there. Another day like today would get it filled. GDX is lagging the actual price of gold here and that is not a positive. Perhaps my idea for the calls here is wrong. I'm sticking with it though because we are oversold on both a short and medium term basis. If you don't try the calls here, when would you? If the gold shares were in a protracted down trend, they could remain oversold for a while. But to me the pattern is a declining rectangle that is a consolidation of the previous up trend. Price should break to the upside when the consolidation is complete. That's my best guess at the moment. Mentally I'm feeling OK. The VIX was up slightly today and that fits with the small decline. Very oversold on the daily VIX chart. Perhaps there's a decline that I don't see coming. The NASDAQ showed better relative strength today and that's a short term plus. The background environment remains the same with a lame duck president along with the ongoing pandemic. Asia was generally higher and Europe mixed overnight. We'll see what tomorrow brings.