Options expiration week starts off with some buying as the Dow rose 87 points on light volume. The advance/declines were slightly positive. The summation index is still in a sideways configuration. The NASDAQ was the leader today and that's a plus for the bulls. The short term indicators for the major averages are starting to turn back up. Perhaps the positive options expiration week bias will be in effect. There's still plenty of economic data to sift through in the coming days. I'm considering the SPY September puts ahead of the inflation data due out on Wednesday. But this is more of a gut feel idea based on my belief that the data will come in hot. Technically the SPY is neither short term overbought or oversold. So perhaps the sidelines is a more prudent path to take when it comes to this idea for a trade. We'll see. Gold was up a couple bucks on the futures. The US dollar was lower and interest rates were steady for the most part. The XAU rose 1 3/4, while GDX gained 3/8. Volume was pretty light. The short term indicators are turning back up for GDX as well. My open order for the GDX October calls remains out there. Again, I might have to adjust the order depending on what happens the rest of this week. I still like this idea but we may be too late if the gold shares simply continue higher from here. Mentally I'm feeling a bit tired. The VIX was a touch lower today. it remains short term oversold and below its 50 day moving average. Not sure what to expect next for the VIX. Some of our work points to higher stock prices coming this week and today confirms that prognosis. But there's still plenty of time left in the week with plenty of economic data to digest on the one hand. On the other there's only 4 days to go in the September option cycle so the risk in a potential trade for this week is very high. Never easy in this game. Europe up and Asia mixed overnight. We'll keep watch on tonights developments.