A reprieve from the recent selling today as the Dow gained 87 points on good volume. The advance/declines were slightly negative. The summation index is now tracking sideways. After selling for the early part of the session, stocks made it back to plus territory. The short term indicators for the S&P 500 are trying to turn back up here. The TRAN has stopped its freefall and there appears to be a bullish hammer now on the daily candlestick chart there. There's also a small hammer on the NASDAQ daily chart but it was the underperformer today. It looks like most of the major averages are trying to hang in at their 50 day moving averages. Gold was up a dozen on the futures. The US dollar was slightly higher and interest rates remained steady. The XAU was up 1 7/8, while GDX added 1/2. Volume is still light for the gold shares as there is not much interest here still. My GDX April calls gained some ground. The short term indicators for GDX are trying to turn back up. If that is successful then the GDX call trade will be successful as well. I'm trying to hold this trade until Tuesdays inflation data is out. Only 5 days left in the April option cycle as next Friday is a holiday. Mentally I'm feeling OK. The VIX was lower today and the daily candlestick chart here is implying a lower VIX in the coming sessions. The short term technical indicators are mid-range. Option expiration week is almost upon us and right now the market has the feeling that the positive bias will show up. But that's just a guess and hasn't happened yet. We're still at the mercy of headline risk as the ongoing Russia/Ukraine conflict is not going away. My thinking on the GDX trade is that inflation will be high and money will flow into gold. Of course the technical set up there is more important and I'm hoping for a break out above 40 before option expiration. We'll see. Asia and Europe were both lower last night. We'll close out the trading week tomorrow.