Looking for a bounce and we got one today as the Dow climbed 436 points on light volume. The advance/declines were better than 3 to 1 positive. The summation index is still moving down. The NASDAQ led the way higher and that's a plus for the bulls. The question now is whether or not the bottom for this move lower is in or if this is just a bear market bounce. It feels like the latter since the up move came out of nowhere, which is often the case in bear markets. We still remain short term oversold for the S&P 500 despite the move higher today. The light volume also doesn't inspire us to believe that this is more than just a bounce in an ongoing down trend. The next down trend line for the S&P 500 comes in about 100 points from here. Will we get there or have the patience to wait? The trading is never easy and time is running out in the September option cycle. Gold jumped $15 on the futures. The US dollar was lower along with interest rates. The XAU added about 3 2/3, while GDX was up 7/8. Volume was good and the short term technical indicators for GDX have turned back up. My open order for the GDX October calls wasn't filled and it appears that it won't be. I'm still leaving it out there but it doesn't look like it will get filled if this is indeed a bottom for the gold shares. Mentally I'm feeling OK. The VIX dropped and closed back below its 200 day moving average. The short term indicators here are rolling over which implies more gains to come for stocks. It is another sign that the potential is there for the recent decline to be over. However we'll only know that for sure as time goes on. Meanwhile we have to trade with whatever information that we have today. If we continue to move up with light volume I will probably try the SPY puts before expiration next week. I'm also a believer in the gold shares right now so I'll be hoping for some near term weakness again there to try the October calls. Markets rarely cooperate. Asia was lower and Europe higher with the exception of the FTSE overnight. We'll see how things go tomorrow.