Expiration Friday turned into a day of just hanging around as the Dow fell 142 points on heavy volume. The advance/declines were negative. The summation index has stalled. It was a mixed picture as the NASDAQ posted a slight gain and the S&P was basically unchanged. It felt like a mid-summer trading day. The S&P has moved sideways for two weeks and remains short term overbought. I'm considering the SPY August puts at some point in the near future. Gold rose $8 on the futures. The US dollar was lower along with interest rates. The XAU and GDX had fractional losses on light volume. GDX continues to hang around its 50 day moving average. Mentally I'm feeling OK. The VIX was slightly lower. The short term indicators here are moving lower but not yet oversold. The Bollinger bands here are starting to move closer together. We are moving into the August option cycle so premiums will be high. No clear signal on what to do next right now. Still at the mercy of the next headline as earnings reports are due. I'll try and remain patient for the next signal. Checking the charts over the weekend as usual. We don't want to force things just for the sake of making a trade. Europe and Asia finished mixed to close out the week. It's Friday afternoon and time for a break.