Another wild day on Wall street as steep losses turned back into gains by the close. The Dow rose 239 points on pretty heavy volume. The advance/declines were slightly negative. The summation index is still moving down. Another huge gap lower to begin the day but the rest of the session was a recovery sparked in the final hour on word that the war with Iran could soon be over. There were one day upside reversals all around and a negative reversal for oil. The NASDAQ led the way higher and that is a positive. The S&P had a decent gain and finished well off of the lows on the session. Is this the big upside day out of nowhere that we were looking for in order to try the SPY March puts? That is the question and I don't really have an answer. Some of the short term indicators for the S&P have now turned up. I'm on the side of caution for now with regards to trading the SPY options because the trading environment at the moment is so volatile. The drop with todays low has only been 5% off of the all time high for the S&P. However it seems like it has been more than that. Gold was off a dozen on the futures and came up well from its lows. The US dollar was a bit lower along with interest rates. The XAU gained around 4 1/2, while GDX added a point or so. Volume was a bit above average. The gold shares also saw one day upside reversals. The short term indicators for GDX are starting to turn around. The up trend line from last November on the GDX daily chart has still contained the recent decline That said, my open order for the GDX March puts remains out there. The plan is to purchase them at some point ahead of the Fed next week and wait for that meeting. A light volume rise from here would be ideal. Mentally I'm feeling a bit tired. The VIX zoomed up to 35 this morning only to fall all the way back to 25 by the days close. It appears to have put in a top. Some of the short term indicators have turned back down. The VIX is pointing to the probability that the decline in stocks is over. We'll see. Asia had steep losses and Europe was lower to begin the trading week. We'll see what tonights headlines have to say.