Back to the downside today as the Dow lost 299 points on good volume.  The advance/declines were almost 4 to 1 negative.  The summation index is still moving up.  The VIX almost made it to 15 and the market turned around.  That is the level to watch for on the VIX.  It looks like when we get down there the market will turn.  We'll have to wait for it to head back there.  One day doesn't make a trend.  What I'd like to see is another run back to 15 on the VIX with a light volume rally from here.  But the market rarely cooperates.  The new Fed chief spoke today and the market didn't like what it heard.  We were getting short term overbought on some indicators so a drop here isn't a big surprise.  It would be a surprise if it turns into something more.  GE lost what it gained yesterday and finished well off of the highs.  It was the most actively traded on the big board.  Yesterday there was a hammer and today there's a shooting star.  Basically GE is trying to make up its mind here.  I'll still maybe try the calls if we head back to $14.  Gold got hit on the Fedspeak and lost $14.  The US dollar was higher.  The XAU fell 2 1/4, while GDX shed 2/3.  Volume was good.  Mentally I'm feeling OK.  We've now snapped back to the recent breakout on the S&P 500.  If we hold here we should start moving back up.  If not the short term up trend line from the rally that began in the beginning of the month could get violated.  We do have bearish candlesticks on the daily charts after todays price action on the major stock indices and we closed near the lows of the day.  So we are at an important near term point for the markets.  Just yesterday it appeared that all systems were on go and we were simply going to go back and test the all time highs.  That may still happen.  QQQ was on the verge.  We'll need to keep a close eye on what goes on for the rest of the week.  We've got the end of the month tomorrow.  The Fed will speak again on Thursday.  The jobs numbers will be out on Friday.  There are plenty of potential market movers.  Perhaps today was the time to try the SPY March puts again.  Time will tell on that.  For now I'm going to have to wait and see how things go ahead of the employment report.  Perhaps the VIX can return to the 15 level relatively soon.  That is more wishful thinking than anything else.  But at least we have something to go on.  Asia was mixed and Europe lower overnight.  We'll see how we finish out the month tomorrow.