It was a one day reversal to the upside as the Dow opened lower and closed higher.  The most watched index gained 40 points on light volume.  The advance/declines were even.  The summation index continues lower.  The overall market was weaker than the Dow with the small stocks heading lower by far.  I'm still interested in getting some SPY October puts on a snap back rally.  But the timing will have to be spot on.  Today feels like some kind of at least short term bottom in my view.  The VIX spiked up above 18, where past declines have stopped in the past few months.  If we do see some upside tomorrow, perhaps Wednesday will be the day to try the puts.  The bond market was closed today so we'll have to see what happens tomorrow.  The S&P 500 is trying to hold at the 50 day moving average and the short term technical indicators are trying to turn back up.  RUT is holding on to its 200 day moving average for now as well.  The question here being is this the end of the decline or simply a spot for a dead cat bounce?  I'm guessing it's the latter.  But the market will go where it wants and could continue to decline tomorrow.  GE has had quite a turnaround and was up 3/8 on very heavy volume.  Gold dropped over a dozen on the futures as the US dollar was a bit higher.  The XAU and GDX had slight fractional gains after being lower much of the session.  Volume was average.  The gold shares have shown good relative strength vs. gold lately and that is a plus for the  precious metal bulls.  Mentally I'm feeling OK.  So here we are with today possibly being the opportunity to try the SPY calls for a bounce trade.  It is simply too late now to attempt this idea.  Because if it is just a bounce, it won't last long.  That is what I'm counting on with respect to attempting the SPY October puts.  If we rally from here into sometime on Wednesday, I will try the SPY put trade.  If not it will be back to the drawing board.  I am of the belief that the market will run lower into the expiration a week from Friday but not without some upside first.  If that is correct we should see some positive prices action in the indices tomorrow.  If not, all bets are off.  Obviously the ideal time for the SPY puts has passed.  But that doesn't mean a profitable trade there can't happen with good timing from here.  We'll just have to see where the market goes from here.  One drawback is that time is not as plentiful as it was for the October option cycle.  Europe and Asia were lower overnight.  We'll look for some upside in US equities tomorrow.