Option expiration Friday before a long weekend. We were up 180, down 130 and ended the day off 60 points. It was that kind of day. Advance/declines were negative and the volume was extremely heavy again. The summation index has broken to the downside. Longer term up trend lines have been broken. Whatever is going on might take a lot longer than people think to work itself out. It's a great market to be short. Still oversold and due for a bounce. Gold was up a buck and the XAU rose almost 2 points. ABX and NEM were about unchanged on heavy volume. The options were just too expensive for me. I am getting a buy signal there though. Perhaps I'll give it a try next week. However the weekly charts are bearish after this weeks action. I'm also looking at HL at the moment. Earnings are due during the February option cycle. I will need to check the charts for these over the weekend. GE had good earnings and was up over a buck on very heavy volume. Perhaps this bodes well for the market going forward. But that's a guess. This is a very bearish market at the moment. That is fact. Mentally I feel OK. Slept well. Ongoing mental debate about getting long the gold shares here. I really would like to go out to March on these but the prices will be high. We'll see. It's tough to step up to the plate in times like these but it has to be done for profits. The problem is the ongoing uncertainty and its effects on market players including myself. But enough of that for now. It's the weekend and time for a break. I'll check the charts and take it from there.