The Dow led the way today as it gained 242 points on light volume. The advance/declines were positive. The summation index is tracking sideways. The inflation data came in where expected. The NASDAQ was the laggard today as it was only up 5 points. The S&P 500 continued higher closing just above the 5450 level. The short term indicators here are trending higher with room to go. I did place an order for the S&P August puts but it wasn't filled. We are getting a sell signal on one of our indicators for the S&P but there are only two days left in the August option cycle. I'm not sure if I will try the puts here again tomorrow but this is the spot to give them a try. Gold was off $20 on the futures. The US dollar finished flat and interest rates were mixed. The XAU and GDX had fractional losses on light volume. They both came up from their lows of the session. The short term indicators for GDX are beginning to stall but are not yet overbought. I'll begin to look at the GDX September calls here. Mentally I'm feeling a bit tired. The VIX contiues to drop and is just about at its 50 day moving average. Comfortably below the 20 level now. The short term indicators are oversold for the most part. Not sure what is going to happen next here on the VIX. Plenty of economic data out tomorrow with retail sales probably being the key. If we open higher I might take the chance on the August SPY puts. If we open lower it most likely will already be too late. I maybe should have adjusted my order at the end of the day to get filled but I did not. We'll see how it goes tomorrow. Europe and Asia were generally higher overnight. We'll keep an eye on tonights developments.