The S&Ps opened down a touch despite more headlines from Trump about a deal happening oh so soon. Crude, however, did slump about 2 bucks on that BS. The dollar also slipped, and the metals bounced.

The S&Ps proceeded to slowly work higher from the open, and we would basically rally all day and eventually went out on the highs with a gain of a third of a percent. That rally nonetheless failed to make a new high. The SOX was also interestingly down over 2 percent, and the QQQ lost a touch. Trouble in AI paradise?

The dollar hit its low on Trump's deal BS and grind higher for the rest of the day to end only down a hair per the DXY. Yields began the day lower and then firmed to nearly unchanged.

BTC continued to tank and fell another 3 percent. MSTR interestingly bounced a couple percent though.

Commodities were mostly higher despite crude's 3 percent pullback. Note crude is still sporting that inverted H&S bottom on the charts.

Gold retested yesterday's low of $4425 and then drifted higher. When Trump's deal BS hit the tape, gold popped to as high as $5515 before eventually reversing to go out back down around $4475 for a gain of under a percent.

Silver similarly firmed overnight and then squirted up to $75 (retesting the broken uptrend since March from below) on the Trump deal BS before reversing again to go out back under 474 but with a a gain of just over a percent.

The GDX opened inside of yesterday's range and bounced up to the 10 day before reversing to go out back below the 5 dma once again but with a gain of over a percent.

Gold, silver, and GDX are all compressed within a tight range over the past 4 days, and that compression suggests that a big move may be coming. The question is in which direction? Will it be another deal-related bounce? Or will the downtrends in place accelerate? While jobs data hasn't played much of a role in market action of late, I suppose tomorrow's data could impact that outcome as well?

I still see the overarching theme at present as being that oil is headed higher (regardless of deal or no deal), and that will push up inflationary pressures, which at present the market assumes the Fed will hold the line on. That belief is what is pressuring gold. That belief is likely to be proven wrong eventually, but for now, there's no reason to force the Fed to go out on a limb.

My gold model remained at neutral.

Positions: Short SPY, QQQ, MDY, and IWM. I also put my XHB and BLDR shorts back out today in half the quantity of what they were at back when I covered them on the low. Long IBIT and DBA.

Metals: Long ZSL and GDXD. I also added some SLV 75 and 74 puts for tomorrow for 11 and 6 cents respectively.