A mixed bag to begin a short trading week with the Dow higher and the overall market lower. The most watched index rose 49 points on heavy volume. The advance/declines were about even. The summation index continues lower. The NASDAQ is still the weakest of the bunch and that's a negative. A late, last half hour rise kept things from being worse. The S&P 500 had a modest loss. The short term indicators here are stuck in oversold territory. You could begin to make a case for some kind of oversold bounce to occur but just as easily say things will fall apart with the summation index crossing the zero line. Our question remains who will want to own stocks at the end of this week heading into a long weekend? No SPY option trades in mind at the moment. Gold was up $18 on the futures. The US dollar was higher and interest rates were lower. The XAU dipped 3 3/4, while GDX was flat. Volume was about average. The short term indicators on GDX are starting to move sideways. I did place an order overnight for the GDX April calls and I'm leaving it out there. No hurry to get filled on this idea for a trade but if things collapse I would like to have an order out there to possibly get filled. Mentally I'm feeling OK. The VIX was a touch lower today and its short term indicators are beginning to stall. Still not completely overbought here. Not sure what's next for the VIX. Not a lot of economic data due this week. Februarys retail sales on Wednesday and the jobs report will come out when the markets are closed on Friday. We are still being held hostage to whatever happens with the war in Iran. Europe higher and Asia lower to start the week. I'll keep an eye on the overnight headlines.