It was a day of just hanging around as the Dow finished flat on lighter volume. The advance/declines were about even. The summation index is stalling here. Not a lot of movement for the stock indices. The S&P 500 is getting to short term oversold on some of the indicators. My guess is that we'll be moving higher form here into the end of the week. One of our technical indicators will be flashing a buy signal after todays price action. I'm thinking about perhaps getting some SPY December calls but the premiums are still pretty pricey considering there are only 7 days left in the December option cycle. Yes the NASDAQ once again led things lower but it wasn't any kind of steep decline. I'm still a believer of higher prices going forward. Gold was up $17 on the futures. The US dollar was lower along with interest rates. The XAU gained 2 1/8, while GDX added 1/2. Volume remains solid for the gold shares. Buyers appear here on any decline. We do want to purchase some GDX January calls but are trying to wait for GDX to get short term oversold. That isn't happening for now. We are tempted to chase things here but for now we'll sit it out. But make no mistake that money is coming back into the precious metals complex. Mentally I'm feeling OK. The VIX was slightly higher today. The short term indicators here are now mid-range. So it could go either way from here. My thinking is that the VIX is going to turn back down here and that stocks will move higher. We'll see. We are still waiting for the S&P to get through the longer term down trend line that began in January at around the 4100 level. I'm guessing that the market will turn back up here and that we will get through that level before option expiration on the 16th. That's my take on things at the moment. The market will let us know in the coming sessions. Europe and Asia were both down. We'll see what tomorrow brings.