Stocks moved higher to end the week as the Dow gained 208 points on good volume. The advance/declines were positive. The summation index continues sideways. The Dow led the way up and that isn't the most bullish scenario. The S&P 500 along with the NASDAQ continue to set new records. The S&P continues to be short term overbought. I did place an order overnight for the SPY August puts and I'm leaving it out there. It will take some more gains to get filled and perhaps that will happen early next week. I would like to own the puts ahead of the Fed announcement on Wednesday but markets rarely cooperate. Gold lost $33 on the futures. The US dollar was higher and interest rates finished slightly lower. The XAU and GDX had fractional gains on better than average volume. Gold down and the gold shares up is generally a positive for the gold share indices. Todays gains there were basically driven by a good earnings report from NEM. The short term indicators for GDX are starting to turn back up and they are not yet completely overbought. Mentally I'm feeling OK. The VIX is still moving lower and is now oversold on a short term basis. It can stay that way during rallies like the one we're in right now. The VIX closed below the 15 level. It still implies higher stock prices in the near term. Then why attempt the SPY puts you may ask? The VIX is one of several indicators that I follow. We are getting at least a short term sell signal from some of them. That doesn't mean that we'll see some type of collapse but it does mean that there may be a chance for some short term profits to the downside. We'll see. I'll be going over the charts this weekend as usual to try and figure out what to do. Europe and Asia were lower to end the week. Plenty to keep an eye on in the coming days. It's Friday afternoon and time for a break.