Volatility has made a return as the Dow stormed back to the upside today with a 448 point gain on light volume. The advance/declines were shy of 4 to 1 positive. The summation index is still trending lower. A new all time high close for the S&P 500. It remains short term overbought and staying that way. There's no news to account for todays rise but the light volume is a warning sign in my book. I think that we are closer to the end of this bull rally than the beginning. Maybe we'll get a blow off top and maybe we won't. At the least I think things will hold up until the expiration next Friday. After that I'll be looking for the SPY August puts. GE was up over 1/4 but the volume was light. Gold rose $6 on the August contract. The US dollar was lower and interest rates were higher. Mixed messages there. The XAU gained 3 1/3, while GDX added 2/3. Volume was light. The gold shares did outperform gold today though. Mentally I'm feeling OK. The VIX sank today and the short term indicators here have turned back down. This implies higher stock prices going forward but this indicator hasn't been reliable lately. Back down away from the 20 area on the VIX and that is bullish. It is now just a matter of waiting next week out and taking things from there. An extra week in the August option cycle means that there's no hurry to do anything. I'll be checking the charts over the weekend as usual. Asia was mixed and Europe higher to finish the week. It's Friday afternoon and time for a break.