A positive start to the week for stocks as the Dow gained 313 points on heavy volume. The advance/declines were barely positive. The summation index is still trending up. The Dow was the leader today and that isn't the most bullish outcome but we'll take the gains. The short term indicators for the S&P 500 are moving higher with room to go. We are almost at a short term sell signal there ahead of the Fed on Wednesday. Option premiums remain high though. Not sure if we are going to try the SPY February puts here. Gold rallied over the $5000 mark as the futures were up sixty bucks. The US dollar was lower along with interest rates. The XAU was up 1 3/4, while GDX added around 1/2. Volume was heavy for the gold shares as they fell back from the best levels on the session. My open order for the GDX February puts wasn't filled in the morning when the gold shares soared. It certainly should have been filled in my mind. The fact that it didn't get filled lets us know that the market makers know more than we do as the put premiums remained high despite the move up in the gold shares. It tells me that the GDX puts should work here as the gold shares remian overbought and have gone parabolic. I'm leaving my open order out there and we'll see if GDX trys to make it back to the high of today. Mentally I'm feeling OK. The VIX finished flat today. The short term indicators here are starting to trend sideways. They are not yet oversold. Not sure what comes next here for the VIX but if the indicators start to move up we'll be in for a decline. That would be even more compelling for the GDX put trade or the SPY puts. But it hasn't happened yet. Geo-political tensions remain in the background with the Fed on Wednesday as the possible main event. We don't expect any change in interest rates but the speech after the announcement may be the catalyst. Asia was generally lower and Europe higher to begin the trading week. I'll keep an eye on the overnight developments.