Volatility remains the name of the game for now as the Dow fell 61 points on good volume. The advance/declines were positive. The summation index is in the process of trying to turn around. There was a huge gap lower for stocks at the open only to be followed by a run back up to positive territory in the next hour. Pretty much sideways after that. Both the NASDAQ and S&P 500 had one day upside reversals. Advantage to the bulls. The short term indicators for the S&P are still moving up but some are beginning to head sideways. Depending on what happens over the long weekend it's anyones guess how Monday turn out. I'm still staying on the sidelines with regards to the SPY options for now. Gold lost $111 on the futures. The US dollar was higehr and interest rates finished flat. The XAU dipped 2 1/3 and GDX lost 1 1/3 on average volume. Some of the short term indicators on GDX are still moving up while others have stalled mirroring the overall technical market action. The fact that gold itself took a big hit and the gold shares held up rather wall is a plus for the precious metal bulls. I'm still considering the GDX April puts as the next trade but will be looking at things over the weekend which may change my mind. It is a trickier than usual trading environment at the moment due to the increased volatility in most markets. Mentally I'm feeling OK. The VIX was lower today. The short term indicators here are trending down. The VIX closed below its short term up trend line. An extra day this weekend to go over the charts and try to figure where we go from here. The market remains in headline risk mode. There's still two weeks left in the April option cycle so we will try and get something done. Asia and Europe were both lower, with India and England bucking the trend. It's Thursday afternoon and time for a rest.