Just another summer trading day as the Dow gained 135 points on good volume. The advance/declines were slightly positive. The summation index is tracking sideways. The market drifted sideways for much of the day and then rose in the final couple of hours. The S&P continues to be short term overbought. I did place an open order for the SPY September puts and I'm leaving it out there. It will take some more gains to get filled. If the market gets into rally mode and powers on up from here, I'll cancel the order. Gold was up twenty bucks on the futures. The US dollar was lower along with most interest rates. The XAU added 4 2/3, while GDX climbed another 1 1/4. Volume was light. There seems to be no sellers in the gold shares. GDX remains short term overbought and is even further away from its 50 day moving average. That doesn't mean that GDX can't go higher but my guess would be that it is getting close to a near term top. Perhaps the lighter volume is simply a function of it being the last week of August. Mentally I'm feeling OK. The VIX was a bit lower today. Remaining short term oversold on its indicators. Not sure what's next for the VIX but the low levels are generally bullish for stocks. Still waiting on NVDA earnings and Fridays inflation data ahead of a long weekend in the US. Europe and Asia were lower overnight. I'll keep an eye on the evenings news events.