It was one of those days on Wall street as we had a huge gap lower at the open and then made it all the way back. Russia invaded the Ukraine overnight and that sent markets into a tizzy. The Dow finished up 91 points after being down 900. The advance/declines were positive. The summation index is still heading down. Volume was very heavy as the one day reversal to the upside probably halts the downturn for now. The S&P 500 was off 100 points and then finished up over 60. The short term technical indicators here have turned up. Short covering and bargain hunters showed up today. Once the invasion took place, what other bad news could possibly come out? The market is in a headline risk mode. We'll wait for the S&P to get back to the down trend line and try the SPY puts there. The NASDAQ led the way back today and that is a plus. Gold had a reversal too but it was the other way around. The futures lost a dozen after opening up over fifty. The dollar was higher and interest rates finished little changed after falling early. The XAU 2 3/4, while GDX shed 2/3. Volume was extremely heavy here as traders bailed out on the news of the Russian action. I did place an order for the GDX March calls overnight but it wasn't filled and I canceled it when gold began to drop. The gold shares did finish off of their lows for the session. The short term indicators for GDX have turned lower. If I do attempt the GDX calls it probably would be better to go out to the April contracts. Not exactly sure what to do here and I'll ponder this idea overnight. Mentally I'm feeling OK. The VIX climbed early and then reversed as the market rallied. It finished a bit lower but is still above 30. The short term indicators are trying to turn down and a positive session for stocks tomorrow should do it. But who knows what tomorrow will bring ahead of the weekend. Today the bulls took a stand to not to have the market collapse. Short covering played a role in that. However interest rates are still set to rise, inflation hasn't gone away and neither has the coronavirus. The summation index is still in negative territory and still moving lower. So I certainly don't think that today was the final bottom for stocks going forward but I could be wrong. Europe and Asia got clobbered overnight. Perhaps they can get a bounce like the US tonight. We'll close out the trading week tomorrow.