It was an up and then back down session as the Dow managed a gain of 40 points on light volume. The advance/declines were shy of 2 to 1 negative. The summation index is still moving lower. It was a mixed market with the NASDAQ showing a small loss. It seems like we're just waiting on the Fed comments tomorrow and Wednesday. I doubt that they'll be bullish, so I'd expect some type of pause or pullback before we get Fridays employment numbers. The short term indicators for the S&P 500 are mid-range so we could go either way here. If we do get a pullback my hope is that it doesn't turn into a rout. Gold was off a couple bucks on the futures. The US dollar was lower and interest rates ticked up. The XAU fell 2 1/8, while GDX shed over 1/2. Volume was pretty light. Gold barely moved lower but the gold shares got sold. That is not a positive. My GDX March calls went from showing a profit to showing a loss. Once again this appears to be another mismanaged trade that should have been sold on Friday. Last week gold was moving and the gold shares weren't keeping pace. What more do you need to see really? Sure there's a chance that this trade will work out but it will now have to be held longer than the original thinking. Not sure that will be a good idea either. Less than 2 weeks to go before the March option expiration. Mentally I'm feeling OK. The VIX was slightly higher today and is short term oversold. I would not be surprised to see the VIX higher tomorrow and stocks lower. Asia and Europe were genrally higher to start the week. We'll keep an eye on tonights developments.