Up, down and back up today but overall not much progress as the Dow fell 30 points on good volume. The advance/declines were positive. The summation index is still moving up and because of that we'll maintain a bullish outlook going forward. The overall market finished a bit better than the Dow but it feels like we are simply marking time ahead of the inflation data due out on Thursday. The S&P 500 remains short term overbought and stalling at new all time highs. There's a potential double top on the daily chart here but I'm still a believer in a breakout to the upside. The McClellan oscillator gave a signal yesterday for a big move within the next two sessions. If that signal is valid we'll see some kind of price movement tomorrow. GE finished flat on the session but did make it back from the lows. Gold lost $6 on the August contract. The US dollar was slightly higher and interest rates were slightly lower. The XAU fell about 2 1/4, while GDX lost over 1/2. Volume was light. The continuing underperformance of the gold shares is a problem for the bulls. It is also a problem for my GDX June calls as they are now showing a loss. Getting short term oversold for GDX but it will have to start moving higher for the June call trade to work. The 50 day moving average should cross through the 200 day to the upside tomorrow for GDX. Whether or not that translates into some buying is a guess at this point. The gold futures contract has a potential inverse head and shoulders pattern on its hourly chart. Or I could just be seeing things because I own some GDX calls. At this point it looks like I'll be hanging on to this trade into the inflation report. Mentally I'm feeling OK. The VIX finished higher today after bouncing around. It remains oversold. I'm no longer considering the SPY June puts ahead of Thursdays report. One thing I don't like at the moment is the stagnant market atmosphere. It again feels like the early summer doldrums. Europe was mixed again with Asia generally lower. We'll see how things go tomorrow.