Some buying at the open but then sellers appeared for much of the session until a recovery in the final hour. The Dow dropped 8 points on light volume. The advance/declines were negative. The summation index continues down. The NASDAQ led the way lower for a change but all the major stock indicies finished well off of their lows on the day. The S&P 500 remains in a sideways trend with the short term technical indicators stuck at mid-range. I am considering getting the SPY May calls on weakness Monday but today might have been the day to purchase as we have already moved up quite a lot from todays low. We'll consider this idea over the weekend. Gold was off a few bucks on the futures. The US dollar was higher along with interest rates. The XAU and GDX had very slight fractional moves up on light volume. Not completely oversold for GDX again but it is in the vicinity of its recent lows. I dumped the GDX May calls that I had for a 75% loss. The entry wasn't as good as it could have been and the exit was horrible. Another mismanaged trade that should have turned a profit. What I need to guard against here is attempting another trade just to try and get even with this one. Thankfully the weekend is here and I'll have time to contemplate the next move. I am looking at the June GDX calls but the strength in the US dollar here might be a concern for gold. We'll see. Mentally I'm doing the best I can despite the losing trade. As I'll always said the mental capital involved with the trades, win or lose, is always the most important concept to consider. The VIX again finished little changed and is not yet completely oversold. It looks like the VIX could go either way although the daily candlestick chart here appears to point to a lower VIX. But I haven't figured out this indicator with any consistency lately. Plenty of charts to look at this weekend as we try and come up with a decent trade for options expiration week. Hopefully I'll be better at the execution than the latest debacle. Trying to move forward from here. Asia was generally lower and Europe up to end the week. It's Friday afternoon and time for a break.