Back to the downside today as the Dow fell 178 points on good volume. The advance/declines were 2 to 1 negative. The summation index is tracking sideways. It was a one day downside reversal for stocks as we had a gap higher at the open and then sold off for the rest of the day. The NASDAQ led the way lower and that is not a plus. The S&P 500 closed below its 50 day moving average. Some of the short term indicators here have turned back down from the mid-range level. It puts our bullish bias here in question. We did want to see some selling in order to purchase the SPY January calls and we certainly got that today. I'm still wary of the summation index and the zero line but I do think that it will hold. I will probably place an overnight order for the SPY calls unless the futures sell off hard tonight. We'll see. Gold was up $18 on the futures. The US dollar was higher along with interest rates. The XAU was up 1 7/8 and GDX rose 1/2. Volume was on the light side. The gold shares finished off of their best levels on the day. The short term indicators for GDX are around mid-range. Mentally I'm feeling OK. The VIX was higher today which fits a down market. Most of teh short term indicators here remain in the oversold area. The VIX remains below the 20 level but if it was to start to rise from here it would spell trouble for stocks. So we are in a tough trading environment right now. Trading on Wednesday followed by a day off followed by the employment report. I suppose remaining on the sidelines is a possibity as well. Europe and Asia were generally higher overnight. We'll see how it goes tomorrow.