There was a negative tone to the market today but that didn't stop the Dow from rising 164 points on light volume. That's the ninth day of gains in a row. The advance/declines were negative. The summation index is still moving up. Both the NASDAQ and the S&P 500 were lower on the session, with the NASDAQ off 2%. The short term indicators there have rolled over. The short term technical indicators for the S&P 500 are still overbought but starting to curl over. With only a day left in the July option cycle I did sell the SPY puts that I bought yesterday. The exit was OK based on todays closing prices. The risk of holding on to them was more than I wanted to take. However if we see follow through selling tomorrow the results of course would be better. The gain was 160%. I don't usually succeed with the short term trades but this one was an exception. We are also still looking at the SPY August puts as well. Gold was lower by $9 on the futures. The US dollar was up along with interest rates. The XAU lost 3 points and GDX fell a point. Volume was almost average. NEM sold off on its earnings report. I canceled the open order for the GDX August calls that was out there. I still think that idea might work but at a lower strike price. Mentally I'm feeling better after a winning trade but must guard against being overconfident just becase one of our ideas worked out. Win or lose you've got to move on. The VIX was up today and that fits with the overall market heading lower. Still short term oversold for most of the indicators here. Expiration Friday on tomorrows agenda and we will most likely let that day go by without a trade before the weekend. Can the Dow make it ten days in a row to the plus side? Stay tuned. Europe up and Asia down in last nights trade. We'll close out the week tomorrow.