It was a mixed bag today as the Dow was higher and the overall market was lower. The most watched index added 36 points on good volume. The advance/declines were negative. The summation index continues lower. The NASDAQ was the downside leader and that is not a plus. The S&P 500 remains short term oversold and is on the cusp of making new lows. We'll get the producer inflation numbers tomorrow and my guess is that is won't be as bad as anticipated. But that's just a guess. The NASDAQ closed on a new low but the Russell 2000 is holding up better than the rest. The Russell led the way down and now could be the canary in the coal mine for at least a short term rally here. But we'll know more as the week unfolds. Regardless, we're still in the grips of a bear market. Gold was off a couple bucks today. The US dollar was a bit higher and interest rates a touch to the upside. The XAU and GDX had fractional losses on better than average volume. The short term technical indicators for GDX are now mid-range, so we could go either way here. The near term will be directed by the reaction to the inflation data. My GDX October calls are now back in the red. I have certainly rode this trade up and down and that is a recipe for disastor. Mentally I'm feeling OK. The VIX was up today and is getting to short term overbought but not there yet. Hard for me to figure out what the VIX means lately. The only thing for sure is that it implies more volatility going forward. I do think that it is an opportune time to put some longer term funds to work here and I did just that today. It would be pretty lucky to catch the bottom of this bear but my thought today is that we'll be higher than todays close by the end of the year. I could be wrong and often am. But with the longer term money you don't have to be completely exact and you have time on your side unlike the options trading. Both Europe and Asia were down. We'll see how it goes tomorrow.