Lower to start the week off as the Dow fell 215 points on good volume. The advance/declines were around 2 to 1 negative. The summation index is still moving higher but beginning to slow down. Waiting on the Fed is the theme at the moment. The Dow was the downside leader and that's not the worst thing. The short term indicators for the S&P 500 have turned down but remain in overbought territory. It looks like we won't get the chance to try the SPY December puts as the decline may already have begun. Might have to switch over to the calls if the opportunity presents itself. Gold was lower by twenty bucks today on the futures. The US dollar was slighly higher and interest rates continued to rise. The XAU was down about 7 1/2, while GDX shed 1 7/8. Volume was a bit below average. The short term indicators on GDX are heading down with room to go. If the gold shares are rolling over here it could get ugly as a potential double top on the daily chart has a lot of room to fall. Hasn't happened yet and it may not but it is something to keep an eye on. Mentally I'm feeling OK. The VIX jumped up today which fits a down market. The short term indicators here have turned up but remain oversold. Not sure if this is the beginning of something higher for the VIX or just a one day bump. I am still in the camp of new all time highs for stocks before option expiration but with a possible short term decline first. I'm not sold on the consensus that the Fed will be cutting rates again in a couple days. We'll see. Asia and Europe were mixed to begin the week. I'll keep an eye on tonights headlines.