Moving lower today as the Dow fell 251 points on heavy volume. The advance/declines were better than 2 to 1 negative. The summation index is moving down. The overall market was much weaker than the Dow with the NASDAQ dropping 2% and leading the way. My idea of higher prices and new all time highs has been negated by todays price action. We had a big gap down at the open, tried to rally and then fell down for the rest of the session. The short term indicators for the S&P 500 are moving down with plenty of room to go. Getting to mid-range on some. Not sure what to expect next as I do not seem to have a good handle on things at the moment. With the summation index moving down I'd expect lower prices to follow in the near term. I am now looking at the SPY November calls. The US government shutdown continues but that will not last forever. The US Supreme court will meet tomorrow regarding the US tariff legality but a decision won't be coming right away. So there are things in the pipeline that will most likely affect stocks one way or the other. Gold lost $66 today on the futures. The US dollar was higher and interest rates ticked lower. The XAU fell 12 1/2, while GDX lost 3 points. Volume was above average. Money is moving out of the alternative assets such as gold and bitcoin at the moment. Not sure why or where the money is going. GDX closed at a new recent low and remains short term oversold. I'm still considering the November GDX calls but that may not be the best idea right now. Mentally I'm feeling OK. The VIX was up today and the short trm indicators have turned up. The VIX got above the 20 level during the day. Yesterday the daily candlestick chart here looked like it wanted to go lower but todays action has canceled that. Once again my reading of what's happening is not correct so I will probably have to take a step back for now. Still plenty of time in the November option cycle. Asia and Europe were down overnight with the exception of the FTSE. Perhaps money around the workd knows things that we don't. We'll see what tomorrow brings.