More sideways price non-movement ahead of inflation data as the Dow fell 81 points on average volume. The advance/declines were slightly positive. The summation index continues higher. A brief pop in the morning was followed by mainly sideways activity for the rest of the session. The S&P 500 finished flat and the NASDAQ posted a small gain. The S&P remains short term overbought. The sell signal that we got failed to materialize in time for my SPY May put trade as I was stopped out early this morning. It was a 35% loss. Do I think that we will head lower tomorrow? Yes but I'm not following up with another put trade here. We also could just keep moving sideways but at some point that will end. The trade was risky but at least I followed the rules for a change, placed a stop loss order and took the loss. Not a lot of money involved here so it wasn't as bad as it could have been. Gold was off $30 on the futures. The US dollar finished flat along with interest rates. The XAU lost 1 1/8, while GDX shed 1/3. Volume was light. Considering the drop in gold the gold shares held up quite well. I'm once again considering the GDX calls although I'm not sure about this week as the options expire on Friday. GDX is still on the overbought side of things on the daily indicators. We'll see. The VIX was up in a mixed market today. Not sure where it's heading next but it looks like it wants to go higher. It does remain overbought on the short term indicators. Producer prices tomorrow and comsumer prices on Wednesday should get the market moving. Overdue for some selling and the volume on this rise hasn't been all that great. My timing on the SPY May puts was off but I still think that is the proper trade here. Asia was mixed and Europe slightly lower to begin the week. We'll see how things go tomorrow.