Back and forth today as the Dow fell 96 points on about average volume. The advance/declines were positive. The summation index continues sideways. The Dow was the laggard today with both the NASDAQ and the S&P 500 posting gains. Waiting on Thursdays inflation report seems to be the story. We will get a GDP revision tomorrow and some talking from Fed officials. The technical condition for the S&P remains the same. Short term overbought with the negative RSI divergence on the daily chart. The question is whether to buy the SPY March puts ahead of Thursdays data. I've made the case here technically but as time moves on I've got less conviction for the trade. Not sure why that is. However if we see some strength tomorrow I'll have to figure out if it's worth the risk or not. The same goes for the GDX March call trade. If the market drops most likely the gold shares will follow. My open order for the GDX calls remains out there. Today the gold futures finished flat along with the US dollar and interest rates. Are you seeing a trend here? Markets are just hanging around waiting for a catalyst one way or the other. The XAU and GDX had fractional losses on average volume. GDX remains in a negative mode with the down trend line that began at the beginning of the year remaining in force at the 27 level. So tonight I'll have to ask myself. Do I want to try this trade or not? Mentally I'm in a mood of indecision or so it seems. Perhaps I should head to the sidelines but there's no making any money over there. No losing any either. The VIX was lower today and closed on its 50 day moving average. Short term oversold here but not extremely. I'm not sure what's next for the VIX. Decisions will have to be made tomorrow ahead of Thursdays data. Europe and Asia were up last night. We'll watch tonights headlines and get ready for Wednesday.