Buyers returned on expiration Friday as the Dow climbed 517 points on lighter volume. The advance/declines were positive. The summation index is trending lower. The Dow led the way higher and that isn't the most bullish scenario. Still waiting on the NASDAQ to confirm the most recent highs in the Dow and S&P 500. The short term indicators for the S&P are still moving lower. Not sure how long that short term buy signal for the S&P we just got will last. Prefer to try the SPY puts once we get back to an overbought technical condition. Gold keeps rolling along as the futures gained $106. The US dollar finished little changed again and interest rates were a bit higher. The XAU rose 13 1/8 and GDX added 3. Volume continues to be good here. GDX is extremely short term overbought but in rallies like this one it doesn't matter. Money is coming into the gold shares and declines are viewed as buying opportunities. We will wait for some kind of pullback before attempting to buy the GDX calls. If one doesn't occur we will continue to look for an entry point for the SPY puts. Mentally I'm feeling OK. The VIX was down today and the short term indicators here have now turned lower. I'm not sure where the VIX is heading next. Just over a week left in August as summer is winding down. I'll be checking the charts over the weekend as usual. Rolling into the September option cycle but there's no hurry to do anything at the moment. We'll get some inflation data in the middle of next week. Asia was mixed and Europe higher to end the week. It's Friday afternoon and time for a break.