The markets are down slightly, but off the lows. There is not much action and volume continues to be anemic.  What does stand out is the VIX (known as the fear index), which is up about 4.5% to $13.61 approaching levels from the beginning of December. The move maybe hinting at some underlying volatility that is not being reflected in the major indexes. 

Oil is down on the day as EIA data showed a build of 614,000 barrels compared to a draw of 2.1 million estimate.  Gasoline stockpile fell by 1.6 million barrels versus the 1.3 million barrel build expected and distillates fell by 1.9 million barrels vs 1.8 million barrel increase estimate.  WTI is trading down about .6% to $53.72.  Natural Gas inventories were a different story and saw a huge draw down of 237 billion cubic feet.  Stock piles have been around 4 trillion cubic feet but have fallen to 3 trillion.  Nonetheless, Nat Gas prices have been on a tear lately and are giving into profit taking, down 3.5% to $3.76.

Gold has made a nice reversal up over 1% and is trading at the highest level in a couple of weeks around $1156 an ounce as the yields on U.S. treasuries declined (the U.S. just completed an auction of $28 billion in 7-year notes yielding 2.284%) and the greenback is down 0.6% against a basket of  currencies.  Gold has fallen about 8% since the election and hit a 10 month low on December 15 after the Fed raised rates and signaled several more hikes to come.  However, Gold is up 8% on the year, after being down for the last three years.