Lower today as the Dow fell 69 points on heavy volume. The advance/declines were around 2 to 1 positive. The summation index is now moving sideways. I had expected higher prices during expiration week but that just isn't the case. The market seems to be running in place here. We'll see if we get any fireworks ahead of long holiday weekend tomorrow. GE was up a dime on light volume. Gold was up a couple bucks on the futures as the US dollar was a bit lower. The XAU and GDX had slight fractional gains on light volume. Gold and the gold shares have been moving sideways since their big drop last week. I'm not sure if it is a consolidation before heading lower or they're trying to form some type of bottom. We have the luxury of time for now as there's an extra week in the next option cycle. I am looking at the GDX February calls for the next trade unless we get a decent signal in the SPY. Mentally I'm feeling OK. The VIX was higher today and that fits with the decline. Most of the short term techncial signals here remain oversold. We are going to have to be patient for now because there just aren't any compelling techncial reasons to try the SPY options at this time. SPY remains overbought and we did have a bearish engulfing pattern today on the daily candlestick chart. But that's about it with other indicators not showing a sign one way or the other. Rolling into the next option cycle also puts the premiums at high prices. Therefore we'll just remain in focus and wait for an appropriate signal. Having no position is a position in itself. Europe and Asia were generally higher in last nights trading action. We'll see how expiration Friday goes tomorrow.