The month ended with a thud as the Dow fell 149 points on light volume. The advance/declines were negative. The summation index is beginning to move sideways. We opened with a gap lower and were negative for the remainder of the session. The S&P 500 remains short term overbought. The NASDAQ was the weakest of the major indices overall. I'm still trying to figure out what's going on here. I still think that we're building a top here but my ideas haven't been exactly accurate lately. I guess we'll see what happens in the beginning of next week and go from there. GE was off 1/3 on light volume. Gold dropped $15 today despite a drop in interest rates. The US dollar had a bounce higher. The XAU and GDX had fractional losses on light volume. The gold shares continue to outperform the metal itself and that's bullish going forward. I'm still considering the GDX calls but now attempting to decide whether to try the August or September contracts. It also may be too late for this trade as well since the technical indicators have already moved up. Mentally I'm feeling OK. The VIX was higher today but did finish off of its early elevated levels. Not sure what is next for the VIX here. We'll be starting the month of August on Monday and still have three weeks left in this option cycle. I'll try and figure out something while going over the charts this weekend. Europe and Asia were lower to end the week. No summer doldrums so far for this year. It's Friday afternoon and time for a break.