Down in the morning and back up in the afternoon but at the end of the day not much progress made in either direction. The Dow finished up 20 points on heavy volume. The advance/declines were positive. The summation index continues lower. The NASDAQ and S&P 500 posted small gains as well. Volume has picked up in the past two sessions so something is going on here. We got a signal last night from the McClellan oscillator for a big move within the next two sessions. We'll see if that comes to fruition tomorrow. Employment data on tap and that could get things moving. The short term indicators for the S&P have stalled at the mid-range level. So it looks like things could go either way from here. I still think the market is on the verge of turning around here but have been proven wrong in the near term. Gold was up $22 on the futures. The US dollar was higher and interest rates dropped. The XAU fell 3 1/4, while GDX dropped a buck. Volume was a touch above average. Gold up and the gold shares down isn't a good sign for the bulls or my GDX October calls. That trade is showing a loss and came within a tick of getting stopped out near the close. GDX is very oversold on a short term basis but cannot get anything going to the upside. More negative price action tomorrow will stop me out of the current trade. Although yesterday I was thinking to chase this idea at a different strike price, today I'm more in the camp of taking the loss and stepping aside. When the technical signals don't work that would be the more prudent course of action. But we'll see. Mentally I'm feeling OK. The VIX finished flat after being higher early on. The short term indicators here are trending sideways near the mid-range level. The daily candlestick chart for the VIX looks like it wants to go lower which would bode well for stocks. But what it looks like and what it does are sometimes two different things. Asia was up with the exception of India and Europe down overnight. We'll see how the markets react to the jobs numbers and close out the trading week tomorrow.