We ended the week on a sour note as the Dow fell 113 points on light volume. The advance/declines were negative. The summation index is trying to turn back up but hasn't been successful. Once again the NASDAQ led the way down and that's a negative. The S&P 500 is short term oversold and back below its 50 day moving average. Earnings season is beginning and perhaps that can get things going positive again. However with the Fed raising rates and cutting off the easy money it could be tough sledding for stocks going forward. The down trend line for the S&P 500 comes in at 4600. If we can somehow make it back to there the SPY May puts would be the play. There's an extra week in the May option cycle so premiums will be higher than usual. Gold dropped almost $10 on the futures. The US dollar was higher along with interest rates. The XAU and GDX had slight fractional gains on average volume. There seems to always be buyers for the gold shares lately. GDX remains both short and medium term overbought. Hoping for some type of pullback in order to try the calls there again. Mentally I'm feeling OK. The VIX was higher today and bounced off of its 200 day moving average. It looks like it could go either way from here. For now we are going to stick with our longer term market view that prices will be going lower. Inflation does not appear to be going away and rates are on the rise. The Russia/Ukraine conflict drags on. We'll keep our eyes on the potential inverse head and shoulders patterns that appear on many of the major stock indice charts. But I still hold on to the view that they won't pan out. We'll have a long weekend to try and figure out what to do next. But with higher option premiums we'll probably remain on the sidelines next week. Europe and Asia were higher overnight. It's Thursday afternoon and time for a rest.