The market got slammed today. Dow down 163 points. Advance/declines heavily negative with a pick-up in volume. Obviously purchasing OEX puts yesterday would have been prudent. But I was too busy watching gold and losing money. Gold did not move today but the XAU and NEM were sold off. ABX also. Near the close I dumped the NEM calls I had for a loss. At one point these had a 100% gain and I held on for a 30% loss. Foolish. Looking back I suppose a stop order would have been smart but that's something I should have learned by now. Disheartening for certain, especially when I should have been concentrating on the OEX. I still have the ABX calls. I bought them cheap and now they're only worth a nickel. Unless there is a complete turn around tomorrow these will be a 80% to 90% loss. I didn't have a lot of money in them but once again it just doesn't pay to chase a move. The candlestick pattern did not pan out in this case. The employment number will be the focus tomorrow, I have no clue as to what it might be. Oil is hitting record highs and is the excuse being used to explain the downside. I suppose I will wait for the XAU to move back down to its long term weekly trendline at 80 and try some calls again down there. Or perhaps I will forget about it and concentrate on the overall market. Either way, losses are part of the game and I will try not to get down on myself. Nobody can be right all the time but I sure could have traded these positions a lot better than I did...