Continuing lower today as the Dow fell 138 points on average volume.  The advance/declines were shy of 2 to 1 negative.  The summation index is still heading lower.  No positive expiration bias this time around.  The VIX did spike higher but came off of its highs for the session, a repeat of yesterday.  We're still not completely oversold for the short term on the major big cap indices but we're getting there.  It also hasn't been much of a percentage decline there either.  I do expect some type of bounce before the end of the week.  The quantity and quality of that should tell us something.  GE was up 1/3 on very heavy volume.  Has the bottom been put in?  Or is this just short covering?  I'm leaving in my open order for the January calls here.  Gold was off five bucks.  The US dollar finished little changed.  The XAU and GDX were little changed as well.  Volume here remains very light and uninteresting.  Mentally I'm feeling OK.  We sold off early again today and made our way back for much of the session.  The difference today was that we sold off again into the close.  We'll see if that makes a difference going forward.  There were no big surprises from the economic data released today.  The small stocks still have good relative strength here, so I'm not expecting some type of imminent collapse.  To me it's still a sideways consolidation before the next leg up.  If we drop from here then I may have to change that thesis.  Foreign stock markets have had a sharper drop but they usually aren't the leaders.  We'll keep an eye on this going forward.  Europe and Asia were both lower last night with Asia taking the worst of it.  I 'll expect some kind of bounce tomorrow in the US.  We'll keep an eye on the overnight trading.