A pause in the rally today as the Dow dropped 62 points on light volume. The advance/declines were 2 to 1 negative. The summation index is moving up. The NASDAQ led the way lower but it wasn't any kind of huge decline. Nor do I think that it is the start of something sustained to the downside. We are in a very positive seasonal period for stocks despite the straight line run up. I expect more gains into the December option expiration. But we do need a rest and perhaps today is the beginning of a sideways consolidation. The S&P 500 remains short term overbought. Gold was up twenty bucks on the futures. The US dollar was a bit higher and interest rates remained flat. The XAU gained 2 3/8, while GDX added over 2/3. Volume was good to the upside but the gold shares did fall off from the best levels on the session. This is an issue holding the gold shares back as there always seems to be sellers showing up on the positive days. Not yet short term overbought on GDX but todays price action was not as positive as it should have been. The complex inverse head and shoulders pattern is still intact for GDX but we need to see a big volume breakout through the 30 level to know this pattern will work. Hasn't happened yet. My GDX December calls have moved back to a slight gains as it bounce back between gains and losses. It appears to be too late for the GDX January calls at the best entry price. Mentally I'm feeling OK. The VIX was slightly lower today and came off of the highs for the session. Still extremely short term oversold here. Not sure what's next for the VIX but it is overdue for some kind of rise. Tomorrow is a getaway day before a long holiday weekend so I would expect the volume to be light along with the volatility. Europe and Asia were generally lower overnight. We'll keep an eye on tonights headlines.