Back to the downside today as the Dow fell 398 points on heavy volume. The advance/declines were 2 to 1 negative. The summation index continues lower. The NASDAQ led the way down again and that is not a plus. Once again we had a final hour sell off which translates into something bearish. Not sure for the reasons right now. The short term indicators for the S&P 500 are back to moving down with room to go. It appears that it is on the way to test its 50 day moving average at 6665. That might be the spot to try the SPY November calls. Or not. Since we are not exactly sure what is going on here the sidelines are probably where we need to be. We also have yet to see a solid signal one way or the other for the next SPY trade. Option premiums are beginning to become better priced though. We'll look things over again tonight and take it from there. Gold was off four bucks on the futures. The US dollar was lower along with interest rates. The XAU and GDX had slight fractional moves one way or the other on average volume. GDX remains short term oversold. Mentally I'm feeling OK. The VIX was back up today and the short term indicators are moving higher with room to go. It closed a half point away from the important level of 20. If we make it past that level the decline in stocks will be more than I expect and last longer. Europe finished lower and Asia higher with the exception of India. We'll close out the trading week tomorrow.