Back and forth today as the Dow managed a gain of 179 points on heavy volume. The advance/declines were better than 2 to 1 positive. The summation index is in a stall with a downwards bias. It was a mixed picture once again as the NASDAQ posted a small loss. The S&P 500 had a slight gain. The short term technical picture on the S&P remains overbought. The Bollinger bands here are beginning to contract. I'm still looking at the SPY August puts as the next trade. Gold was up $37 on the futures. The US dollar was lower again along with interest rates. The XAU rose 5 2/3, while GDX was up 1 1/2. Volume was a bit above average. I have missed the GDX call trade yet again. The short term indicators are not yet completely overbought. They never got to short term oversold but I wasn't able to make an adjustment in my thinking in order to purchase some GDX calls. The floor for GDX was at its 50 day moving average. The move implied by the contracting Bollinger bands is to the upside. Gold continues to draw interest for traders and investors. Mentally I'm feeling OK. The VIX was slightly lower today. The short term indicators are beginning to trend sideways but are not completely oversold. The Bollinger bands here are about as tight as they can get. Something big is about to happen with this indicator. Volatility is about to really increase leading to a decline or the VIX will continue to trend lower leading to a sharp rally. We will see. Asia was generally higher and Europe generally lower overnight. We'll see what happens tomorrow.