Volatility remains the theme as the Dow fell 203 points on heavy volume. The advance/declines were negative. The summation index is moving down. We had a gap down at the open but at least today there was some buying as the market finished up from the lows. Once again the Dow led things lower. The short term indicators for the S&P 500 remain oversold. It is trying to hang on to its 200 day mvoing average here but closed just below it. Option expiration Friday tomorrow so things could get a little crazy. Gold got sold hard again today as the futures lost $255. It did come up from the lows though. Interest rates finished mixed but came down from their highs of the session. The US dollar was lower. The XAU dropped 21 1/8, while GDX lost 5 1/8. They both came back from lower levels early on. Volume was very heavy as players head for the exits. GDX is trying to hang in there at the 82 support level. Not sure that it will. The next support is around 75 at the 200 day moving average. The short term indicators for GDX remain oversold with some of them completely blown out. That is one of the reasons I'm now looking at the GDX April calls as the potential next trade. Not that I think a sustained rally is at hand but because some kind of bounce should occur with the current oversold condition. I may place an open order overnight. It is also true that gold and the gold shares may simply continue to drop here. There is risk in every idea and trade. Mentally I'm feeling a bit tired. The VIX was lower today which doesn't fit with a down market. Sometimes the VIX precedes the next days price action so we'll see if stocks are higher tomorrow. The short term indicators here are still trending lower. It has been quite a week already. Expiration Friday should be interesting. Both Europe and Asia were down sharply. We'll close out the week tomorrow.