Lower today as the Dow shed 295 points on average volume.  The advance/declines were 4 to 1 negative.  The summation index is still moving higher.  We are right at the short term rising trend line for most major stock indices.  What happens next will be the key as to if we will get a chance for a SPY February call trade.  If the line doesn't hold we can wait for an oversold signal to get long.  The short term technical indicators here have begun to roll over.  I'm still a believer in the calls at some point here.  But I don't want to be early.  If the short term line holds then this idea is off.  GE was off 3/8 and the volume was average for lately.  Gold and the US dollar ended the day basically flat on the session.  The XAU was down 1 1/8, while GDX dropped 1/3.  Volume picked up to the downside.  I think that the gold shares simply followed the overall market lower.  Mentally I'm not 100% as I had to go to the dentist and have a tooth pulled today.  Needless to say, that is a distraction.  But as always, the market doesn't care.  I don't think that today is the beginning of anything big to the downside.  I am going to try and remain patient for a good signal to try the SPY calls.  If for some reason things fall apart here, then my prognosis on things here is wrong.  There is still plenty of time in the February option cycle for things to get short term oversold and a call trade to be put on.  Obviously we did not see any beginning of the month money flows today.  Foreign markets were generally lower yesterday.  It seems as though oil is back on center stage for some reason.  We'll see how long that lasts.