A mixed bag today as the Dow did manage a gain of 169 points on light volume. The advance/declines were slightly positive. The summation index continues down. The overall market was weaker than the Dow, with the NASDAQ posting a loss. The short term indicators for the S&P 500 have stalled their downside movement at a mid-range level. They could go either way from here. It seems as though the market is on hold in front of Tuesdays inflation numbers which no doubt will get things moving one way or the other. Not sure what to expect there. No SPY trades for the time being. Gold was off a few bucks on the futures. The US dollar was higher along with interest rates. The XAU and GDX had fractional losses on light volume. I did place another order for the GDX February calls and it was filled. So the first trade of the year is on. The entry looks to be OK depending on where we go from here. GDX remains short term oversold. I'll probably hold this trade into the inflation report and go from there. We'll also get retail sales data on Wednesday of next week. Mentally I'm feeling better and recovery is going well so far. The VIX spiked up during the session but ended up closing lower on the day. It is still above the 20 level. The short term indicators here are mixed but more overbought than oversold. The daily candlestick chart for the VIX has what looks like an evening star which would imply lower VIX readings going forward. That would be a plus for stocks. However the VIX did penetrate its upper Bollinger band. We'll see what that means going forward. Option expiration week coming up and we'll also see if it has the usual positive bias. But we'll be keeping a closer eye on gold and the gold shares as that is where our money is on the line at the moment. Plenty of work to do over the weekend with the charts and indicators. Europe and Asia were generally lower to finish the week. It's Friday afternoon and time for a break.