An overnight air strike in Iraq by the US dominated todays price action as the Dow fell 234 points on average volume.  The advance/declines were slightly negative.  The summation index is still trending up.  Yesterdays positive market action was negated by the overnight developments.  We are still short term overbought though.  It's now anybody's guess as to what transpires over the weekend.  I still favor the SPY puts but I may have to go out to the February option cycle.  I'll know more after checking things over the weekend.  We now do have the negative divergence on the daily RSI indicator for the S&P.  But we also have already dropped pretty good today but that wasn't something that could have been foreseen.  All players should return on Monday and perhaps I'll have a better feel for things then.  GE was up a few cents in a down market and the volume was pretty good again.  Gold took off on the safe haven play.  The futures rose $20.  The US dollar finished little changed though.  The gold shares didn't participate and that's a bearish sign.  The XAU was down a point and GDX lost over 1/8.  Volume was average and the short term indicators have rolled over.  The gold shares were due for a pause but when the precious metal is up twenty bucks, you would expect some buying there.  Didn't happen as traders cashed in on their recent gains.  I was not one of them as I continue to hold my GDX January calls.  Still profitable but won't stay that way if we see a drop next week.  I'm looking for consolidation before moving higher but there isn't a lot of time for that to occur.  Gold also now is at the resistance level of $1550 and extremely overbought.  The odds of it breaking through here are not favorable in my opinion.  Mentally I'm feeling OK.  The VIX soared again today but did finish off of its best level.  If it can somehow move back towards the 12 level, I may try the SPY puts on a short term basis.  We're back in a headline risk environment as last nights action demonstrates.  It is not the ideal trading atmosphere.  But we'll have to take what we get and go from there.  My hope is that the gold shares trend sideways and then return to rally mode but that is asking a lot in just a couple of weeks.  I do think that the overall stock market is vulnerable here and thought that before the air strike in Iraq.  I'll have to watch the headlines out of the Middle east this weekend and check all the charts as usual.  Asia and Europe were lower to close the week.  It's Friday afternoon and time for a break.