A day of stabalization as the Dow rose 30 points on good volume. The advance/declines were slightly positive. The summation index is beginning to move sideways. It was back and forth for much of the session but no big moves either way. The NASDAQ was the leader today but we don't know if the decline is all of a sudden done. It is option expiration week so there are plenty of things in play. The fact that we didn't follow through lower today is a plus for the bulls. The short term indicators for the S&P 500 are not overbought or oversold. With only 2 days left in the September option cycle the risk was too much for me to hold on to the SPY puts and I sold them today. The exit was poor as the market rallied in the final half hour and I simply got out. Had I been more nimble I would have had better results. The profit was 400% in two days but it should have been better. I also didn't have the guts to hang on until Friday but we'll see where we go from here. Gold was off a dozen on the futures. The US dollar was lower and interest rates ticked up. The XAU and GDX had slight fractional moves one way or the other on lighter volume. The gold shares continue to hold up rather well despite gold itself. My open order for the calls remains out there. Mentally I'm feeling a bit frustrated as I did not exit the SPY trade in good fashion. I did have a chance for better profits but wanted to see how the close went. Unfortunately it went against me. However you've got to keep moving in the game and that trade has been completed so we'll have to move on. October has an extra week in the option cycle so premiums will be higher than usual. The VIX dropped as the 28 level has proven to be a ceiling here lately. The short term indicators here are mixed and I'm not getting a good feel for what's about to happen with the VIX next. Plenty of economic data out tomorrow led by the retail sales numbers. Europe and Asia were lower overnight. We'll see what tomorrow brings.