It was a back and forth session to begin the week as an early bounce faded and then came back. The Dow gained 261 points on light volume. The advance/declines were positive. The summation index is moving sideways. The Dow was the overall leader today as the S&P wasn't as strong and the NASDAQ finished in the red. The market opened very strong and then gave it all back only to rise again in the final hour. An interesting session to say the least. I placed a few orders for the SPY September calls, changing my mind several times. None of them were filled. I might try again tomorrow if there is weakness on the open but I've probably missed this trade. The market action is anything but positive and we may have seen the bounce I was looking for already today. The SPY October puts are now on my radar. Gold was up a couple bucks on the futures. The US dollar finished slightly higher and interest rates slightly lower. The XAU was up 1 3/4, while GDX rose almost 2/3. Volume was good. The short term indicators for GDX are starting to turn back up. Perhaps the October calls here should be taken a look at again. Mentally I'm feeling a bit tired. I'm also not sure whether I want to risk putting on a trade with only 4 days left in the September option cycle. The VIX bounced around as well and finally closed lower on the session. It's back below the 200 day moving average. Some of its short term indicators have rolled over. It seems to be implying that higher stock prices are in the cards for the near term. If so I've lost my chance for the SPY call trade which had a pretty good set up. But the short term trades are not my best efforts usually. We'll see how things go tomorrow. Europe was higher and Asia mixed overnight. We'll see how the market reacts to the inflation data due out tomorrow.