A mixed bag for Thursday as the Dow fell 45 points on light volume. The advance/declines were negative. The summation index is moving higher. Both the NASDAQ and S&P 500 posted small gains. They both remain short term overbought on the technical indicators. Option expiration tomorrow and anything goes there. We've had a straight line up for stocks and some kind of consolidation is overdue. Perhaps next week with a holiday trading affair. But who knows? We still are of the belief that declines can be purchased. Gold was up twenty bucks on the futures. The US dollar finished flat and interest rates were lower. The XAU rose 1 3/4, while GDX added 3/8. Both finished off of the highs for the session. Volume was heavy. The short term indicators for GDX are turning back up. My GDX December calls are back to showing a small profit. Still looking to buy some GDX January calls as my open order remains out there. If we can get to 29 on GDX tomorrow the weekly candlestick chart will be looking bullish. If not we may have to rethink what we're doing. Mentally I'm feeling OK. The VIX was slightly higher today. The daily chart looks like it may want to go up a bit here. So maybe we'll see some selling tomorrow. The VIX remains short term oversold for an extended period. We'll get through expiration Friday and take it from there. Still on the sidelines with regards to the SPY. Europe and Asia were generally lower. We'll close out the trading week tomorrow.