Another day of indecision but the Dow managed a gain of 262 points on good volume. The advance/declines were positive. The summation index is still trending lower. The NASDAQ posted a small loss and the S&P 500 finished basically unchanged. We opened with a huge gap higher but then sold off hard all the way back into negative territory. No summer doldrums here. The rest of the day was spent mostly going sideways in negative territory until the final hour. I'm not sure what's going on here but the S&P remains oversold on the short term indicators. We've got the Fed on Wednesday and inflation data on Thursday to deal with. End of the month on Friday. Option premiums remain elevated but I am leaning towards the SPY August puts at some point. Gold was up $15 on the futures. The US dollar was a bit higher and interest rates a bit lower. The XAU was up 1 1/2 and GDX rose 1/2. Volume was pretty light. The short term indicators for GDX are still moving up with room to go. I'm still considering the GDX August calls but not in a hurry to purchase them as the light volume for the gold shares isn't exactly a bullish sign. Mentally I'm feeling OK. The VIX was up slightly to begin the week. The short term indicators here are moving sideways in mainly overbought territory. The daily candlestick chart here looks inconclusive. We will remain patient and on the sidelines for now. Asia and Europe were higher to start off the week. I'll keep an eye on tonights headlines.