The employment data came out mixed and after an initial pop to the upside stocks sold off for the rest of the session. The Dow fell 444 points on good volume. The advance/declines were around 3 to 1 negative. The summation index is beginning to stall again. The NASDAQ led the way lower and that is not a plus. The short term down trend line in the S&P 500 that I expected to be broken to the upside held for now. The short term indicators for the S&P have turned back down. I'm not sure what is next here for the S&P as there is no clear technical signal for a trade. A couple of weeks left in the February option cycle, less one day for a holiday. I will have to remain on the sidelines with regards to the SPY options here for now. Gold was up ten bucks on the futures. The US dollar was higher along with interest rates. The XAU and GDX had fractional losses on about average volume. I did place another order for the GDX February puts but it wasn't filled. I canceled it so it would not sit around over the weekend. I still like this idea as the short term indicators for GDX have turned lower although still short term overbought. The gold shares did follow the overall market today but not drastically. We'll see how things open on Monday morning and go from there. Mentally I'm feeling OK. The VIX was up today which fits the down market. Now above both the 50 and 200 day moving averages. The short term indicators for the VIX are trying to turn back up. The Bollinger bands here are contracting. I'm not exactly sure what the VIX wants to do here. Sometimes it's tough to be patient but I'd like to limit my trades to the best set ups possible. My feel for what is going on here isn't all that clear. I'll be going over all the charts this weekend to try and sort things out. Asia was mixed and Europe lower to end the week. It's Friday afternoon and time for a break.