Big gains for stocks today as the Dow climbed 693 points on heavy volume. The advance/declines were better than 2 to 1 posiitve. The summation index is trying to turn higher. The NASDAQ led the way up and that's a plus for the bulls. The S&P 500 was up 110 points. The short term indicators for the S&P are moving up and some have room to go before hitting overbought territory. This index is knocking on the door of new all time highs and at this rate will hit them tomorrow. I have to admit that my prognosis for the SPY August puts here is wrong. Todays market breadth was much better and it appears that the S&P will break out to the upside of the recent 3 month congestion zone on the daily chart. That doesn't mean that we won't try the puts at a later date but it does mean that we've missed this move higher. Gold was flat on the futures. The US dollar finished flat as well and interest rates dipped. The XAU was up about 7 1/2, while GDX gained around 2 points. Volume was pretty light here as the interest in the gold shares remains tepid. The short term indicators for GDX are back to moving up with room to go. GDX is once again close to breaking the down trend line of its weekly chart. That would be a major positive if it happens. Mentally I'm feeling OK. The VIX was just a bit lower today. Some of the short term indicators here are starting to trend sideways. Not all are oversold yet. I'm undecided about what's next for the VIX. More earnings this week and the jobs report on Friday. However the market remains hostage to the next headline on the US/Iran conflict. More bombing would probably send things lower and an agreement of a peace deal would send things higher. The reality of the situation is that we don't know what will happen next. We will stick with the technicals and can say that if the S&P breaks out here it would be bullish for stocks. Asia was mixed and Europe higher with the exception of the FTSE to begin the trading week. I'll keep watch on the overnight developments.