The month began with some selling as the Dow fell 285 points on average volume.  The advance/declines were negative.  The summation index is still moving sideways.  The overall market was not as weak as the Dow.  We had a gap lower to start the day but the market did not continue to sell off.  We remain in the month long congestion zone for now.  The jury is still out on which way things go here.  GE was up a few cents on OK volume.  Gold found buyers today as the futures rose around $25.  The US dollar was slightly higher.  The XAU was up 1 1/4, while GDX added 1/2 on better than average volume.  Given the big jump in gold I would have expected the gold shares to perform better on the day.  Perhaps they were held back by the overall market.  They continue to be over extended though.  Mentally I'm feeling OK.  The VIX bumped up today but came off of its best level.  We're in an interesting spot for the market where it could break either way.  Technically we're forming a flag after a decline which would imply lower prices going forward.  However the flag has taken so long to form that it could also be a consolidation before moving back up.  Some of the short term technical indicators are overbought here but not a complete consensus.  Of course we could get some kind of headline at any time that will move things in either direction.  But we cannot trade on guessing what that may be.  We also have the jobs report on Friday to contend with.  I'll be away from my desk beginning on Thursday, so I'm in the position to really not do anything at the moment.  I'll be gone for a week and a half.  I will try and get to a computer to update the blog but I can't make any promises.  It certainly isn't the ideal scenario for trading so I will probably remain on the sidelines unless I can get some better computer access.  But I doubt it.  Europe and Asia were generally lower.  We'll keep an eye on the overnight developments.