Just another day of watching paint dry as the Dow gained 22 points on light volume. The advance/declines were slightly negative. The summation index is stalling here. We saw a little back and forth early but have finished just about where we started. The was no expiration volatility and no positive expiration week bias. Not sure what the market is doing here but it ain't much. It's a trendless game at the moment and that isn't appealing to options trading. It's still a week and a half until the Fed. The S&P 500 has been trading sideways for a while and we're still waiting to get to 4200. The short term technical indicators here have rolled over from overbought. I'm not sure what comes next here but we'll move on to the May option cycle. Gold lost over $25 on the futures. The US dollar was a bit lower and interest rates a bit higher. The XAU fell 1 3/4, while GDX lost 3/8. Volume was light. GDX is moving towards short term oversold but isn't there quite yet. I am looking at the May calls here now and will probably place an order before the open on Monday. We'll put the order in only to be filled if GDX continues to decline. There's a possibility that gold rolls over here and we do not want the calls if that happens. GDX could be headed back to the 50 day moving average which is below 31. So we will have to look at things this weekend and try to come up with the right game plan here. Mentally I'm feeling OK. The VIX was lower today as there was no upside follow through to yesterdays slight gain. Still short term oversold and the VIX is still saying that higher stock prices are in our future. It is a low volatility environment at the moment. The low volume is a concern for the bulls. But there is an old adage saying to never short a dull market. We'll stick to the techncials and right now there isn't a clear signal with regards to the SPY. We'll check the charts this weekend and take it from there. Europe was higher and Asia lower to finish the week. It's Friday afternoon and time for a break.