February begins to the upside as the Dow climbed 229 points on heavy volume. The advance/declines were better than 3 to 1 positive. The summation index is still heading lower. A sell off in the S&P 500 futures last night did not take hold as the market took off to the upside from the start of cash trading. Still trying to figure out what's going on here but the S&P has held on to the 50 day moving average for now. More oversold than overbought for stocks at the moment but we're not at any kind of extreme. We'll have to see how the rest of the week plays out and if we get some kind of technical signal one way or the other. Still plenty of time in the February option cycle. GE was up a nickel on light volume. Gold added over a dozen on the futures as the US dollar was higher as well. Silver is the story in the precious metals right now. The futures there gained almost 10% today. The XAU jumped 7 3/4, while GDX added 1 1/4. Volume was average. My GDX February call order is still out there but it may be time to just cancel it. GDX has already moved a couple points higher and the short term techncial indicators have moved up. I'm not sure that I want to chase things here but I'll ponder this thought a bit more overnight. Mentally I'm feeling OK. The VIX was lower today and the short term indicators are now pointing down. I'm still looking for lower prices going forward though. There is plenty of room on the weekly indicators for the major stock averages to head lower. The recent volatility means to me that a change in the nature of the market is upon us. I do not think that we'll be heading back to new all time highs soon. I could be wrong. The silver market is getting a lot of attention right now but that hasn't translated into a big move higher in gold. I guess that I'll wait and see what happens tomorrow and take it from there. We've got the jobs report on Friday and I do think that will be a mover for metals one way or the other. We'll see. Europe and Asia rallied overnight as well. We'll keep an eye on the overnight developments.