Back and forth today but a positive beginning to the week as the Dow gained 210 points on light volume. The advance/declines were positive. The summation index is moving up. The Dow led the way higher and reached a closing record high. The S&P 500 remains short term overbought but not at extremes. I still expect a drift higher into Fridays option expiration. Retail sales out tomorrow is the highlight of this weeks economic data. I don't think that I'll be placing any SPY trades this week but we'll see. Gold was up $6 on the futures after being higher early on. The US dollar was up slightly and interest rates finished mixed. The XAU and GDX had fractional losses on average volume. Gold up and the gold shares down could be a problem for the gold bulls here. I expected more upside from gold today considering the weekends turmoil. I still like the GDX calls going forward but we'll watch and wait for now. GDX remains short term overbought. Mentally I'm feeling OK. The VIX was higher today and that does not fit with an up market. It is now above its 50 day moving average. The last time the VIX was up along with the market a pretty negative session followed. We'll see how things go this time around. Europe was lower with Asia generally higher but only partially open to begin the trading week overseas. I'll keep an eye on the overnight developments.