A waiting game took place today as the Dow fell 119 points on good volume. The advance/declines were positive. The summation index is moving up. After a bounce around in the first hour it was sideways for the rest of the day. The market is currently being held hostage by the US/China trade talks over the weekend. Monday morning should prove interesting on the reaction to whatever that brings. The other major indices basically finished flat. The S&P 500 is still short term overbought. One week to go in the May option cycle. Not sure If I'm going to attempt a short term trade but we'll see what happens on Monday. The problem here is that we are more at risk of headline events than in the normal course of business. It can work for or against you but there is no way to make a rational prediction of just what will occur. Trading is tough enough without that angle thrown in. Gold was up $27 on the futures. The US dollar was lower and interest rates finished flat. The XAU rose 6 3/8, while GDX added 1 1/2. Volume was average. The gold shares finally outperformed gold and that is a plus for them. The short term indicators for GDX have turned back up. Mentally I'm feeling a bit tired. The VIX was lower today and remains short term oversold. If it does get down to the 20 level next week I may try the SPY May puts for a short term trade. That is my current idea for next week. However I'll be going over all the charts this weekend and perhaps I'll come up with something else. There is also the choice of simply remaining on the sidelines. Europe was higher and Asia mixed again to close out the week. It's Friday afternoon and time for a break.