Volatilty was the name of the game today along with one day downside reversals as most indices opened higher and closed lower. The Dow however did manage a gain of 86 points on pretty heavy volume. The advance/declines were positive. The summation index is still trending lower. The NASDAQ led the way down and that is still the underlying theme. We had a big gap at the open and markets powered higher but it was short lived. Stocks then turned around and went into free fall for a couple of hours only to turn back around and recoup almost all of the losses. The short term indicators for the S&P 500 are all over the place. Some are moving lower, some higher and the rest sideways. During the brief morning rally I was stopped out of my SPY June put position only to see things turn back down during the session. The trade had around a 30% gain but should have been much more. I've been stopped out before only to see things turn around on a trade and that is one of the reasons why I sometimes don't use them. There are also many times where the stop has saved me from bigger losses. The entry on this trade was OK even though not the best but the exit was terrible. That said we simply move on from here because that position is over. I am still considering the SPY June puts if we see some rally the rest of this week. Gold fell $81 on the futures. The US dollar was a bit lower along with interest rates. The XAU dropped 4 1/3, while GDX slid about a point. Volume was above average. The short term indicators for GDX are still oversold. We are now thinking about the GDX July calls but not exactly sure if that will be the next trade. Mentally I'm feeling frustrated as to getting stopped out of what could have been a huge gain. But the market doesn't care and you've got to keep moving forward in this game. The VIX was higher today but off of its best levels. Some of the short term indicators here are heading sideways and some are still heading higher. The VIX closed just below the 20 level. I'm still not sure where the VIX is headed but anything above 20 spells more selling for stocks. It is another reason to still consider the SPY June puts going forward. Seven days left for the June option cycle. Inflation data due out tomorrow should get things moving once again. Asia was generally higher and Europe generally lower overnight. We'll see what tomorrow brings.