Well I'm back and what a session to return to.  The Dow got clobbered today and fell 204 points on average volume.  The advance/declines were 6 to 1 negative.  The summation index is heading down.  The overall market was much weaker than the Dow.  The McClellan oscillator is deeply oversold.  It is in an area where you'd normally expect a bounce.  The question is will it be a bounce that leads back up or simply a bounce to allow traders to get short?  Another question is whether or not to play the bounce.  Just getting back from a vacation, which isn't the normal circumstance for me, makes it hard for me to figure out what to do.  However I may just try the SPY August calls tomorrow.  The decline is geo-political in nature, with Trump vs. North Korea as the topic.  My thinking is that this too will blow over and we'll be back to economics once again.  But I could be wrong and often am.  GE dropped 3 /8 on light volume.  Gold was up $13 on the futures and the US dollar was a bit lower.  Nothing like international tension to get some gold buying going for a change.  The XAU rose 1 1/4, while GDX gained 1/2 on good volume.  My open order for the longer term ABX calls wasn't filled while I was away and it really looks like this trade was simply missed.  I still have the order out there in case we see a decline in the gold shares to fill it.  But I'm starting to think that is probably would be best to simply cancel the order and move on.  Mentally I'm a bit tired from the travel.  My market data has to be updated and the time zone difference is still evident in my thinking.  The VIX really jumped today and is overbought any way you look at it.  The small stocks now look like they're leading the way down here.  Unless we see a rise tomorrow, the RUT will be breaking its uptrend line on a weekly basis that's been in effect since the beginning of 2016.  You might want to read that again because it is significant and would change the whole ballgame going forward.  I think that the fact we're in the seasonally weak time period for the market is another thing to consider as well.  So caution is advised at the moment.  The short term uptrend line for the SPY comes in just below the 243 level.  That would be the logical spot to try the SPY August calls for a bounce.  But what to do after that will be the question if in fact a bounce there does occur.  As usual there are plenty of questions to be answered in the game.  Perhaps waiting until things sort themselves out would be the best strategy but you won't make any money that way.  You won't lose any though.  Europe and Asia were lower overnight.  We'll keep an eye on the overnight foreign market developments and see what tomorrow brings.