Middle East geo-political concerns have returned as the Dow fell 118 points on light volume. The advance/declines were slightly positive. The summation index is trending lower. The overall market was a little better with both the NASDAQ and the S&P 500 eeking out slight gains. The inflation data came in about where expected. The S&P 500 is still short term overbought and on the verge of a possible new all time high. The contracting Bollinger bands here imply a big move is coming. Only four days to go in the January option cycle. Do we try a SPY trade before the close next Friday? Doubtful that we'll see a decent signal before then but you never know. Gold took off to the upside on the Middle East tension as the futures climbed $34. The US dollar was slightly higher and interest rates dipped. It wasn't a broad flight to safety but gold got the most mileage out of it. The XAU gained 3 1/4, while GDX was up over 3/4. Volume was good to the upside. My open order for the GDX February calls is still out there but doesn't have much of a chance of getting filled unless GDX heads back down. The question is whether to chase this move in gold or not. Lately when we've seen a big one day rise for gold on military news out of the war torn region it hasn't lasted. The short term indicators for GDX have turned back up and have lots of room to go higher. I'm inclined to wait it out for now but we'll check things out over the weekend and go from there. Mentally I'm feeling a bit tired. The VIX was up a bit today. Still short term oversold on the daily chart here. A long holiday weekend for us in the US and there will be plenty of time to go over the facts and figures. Not sure exactly what to expect next week but we'll try and come up with a game plan. Asia finished mixed and Europe was higher to close out the week. It's Friday afternoon and time for some rest.