The upside continues as the Dow gained 162 points on summer average volume. The advance/declines were positive. The summation index is moving up. Plenty of buyers as the bulls are now in control. During the decline we usually got last hour sellers. Now we get last hour buyers. The NASDAQ continues to out perform and that's a plus. Most of the major stock averages are now short term overbought. 4020 looks to be the next line of resistance for the S&P 500. Is the bear market over? It sure feels like it but we'll know for sure as time moves on. We are heading for a seasonally weak period for stocks. But with the summation index heading higher it's kind of hard to go against that. Gold was up $15 on the futures. The US dollar dropped along with interest rates. The XAU was up 1 1/3, while GDX gained 1/2. Volume was light. My GDX September calls didn't get stopped out today and are still losers. Not sure why gold rose today but it looks like just an oversold bounce. Mentally I'm feeling OK. The VIX continued to fall and is getting closer to our magic number of 22. It remains short term oversold. If and when the VIX hits 22 we will be taking a shot with the SPY August puts. If the VIX makes it through the 22 level and stays there, we'll declare the bear market over. So we'll see. Europe and Asia were mixed overnight. We'll close out the trading week tomorrow.