A huge move higher today as the Dow jumped 932 points on heavy volume. The advance/declines were better than 4 to 1 positive. The summation index is trying to turn around. Rates rose as expected from the Fed. Later the Fed chair jawboned the markets higher with his comments. Truth be told the market was so bearish it only had one way to go. Short covering today again to be sure. However rallies that spring out of nowhere are bear market characteristics, even if the S&P 500 hasn't reached that stage yet. Some of our technical indicators were at bear market extreme levels so moving higher is not a surprise. Maybe we can make it back up to one of the down trend lines for the S&P and then try the SPY puts before the May option cycle ends. The short term indicators for the S&P have now turned back up. The NASDAQ barely led the way higher today but it's still a plus. We'll remain patient for now. Gold advanced $14 on the futures. The US dollar was lower along with interest rates. The XAU gained almost 3 points, while GDX was up over 2/3. Volume was good. I canceled my open order for the GDX May calls as I've missed this opportunity for now. The short term indicators for GDX have also turned back up. Mentally I'm feeling frustrated as I took the loss on the GDX call trade Monday when it blew through my stop limit order, while at the same time I had another buy order for the GDX calls that wasn't filled even though it hit the trade price. Needless to say that trade would have already more than doubled. But we're at the mercy of the computers now in the game and sometimes things just don't work out. The VIX dropped today and it's looking like we're heading back down to the support line for this indicator. That would coincide with a rally in stocks. Ideally we'd get to the support line for the VIX at the same time we reach the down trend resistance line for the S&P. That would be the set up for the SPY puts. The markets rarely cooperate. Next up is Fridays employment report. Europe and Asia were lower, with parts of Asia still on holiday. We'll keep an eye on the overnight developments.