Down we go as the Dow fell 454 points on heavy volume.  The advance/declines were shy of 4 to 1 negative.  The summation index is heading lower.  Stock indexes opened with a gap lower and continued to sell off throughout the session.  The short term technical indicators have all rolled over and we're not oversold yet.  The S&P 500 has broken its up trend line that began in October.  It looks like we've missed the chance to purchase the SPY February puts but maybe not.  The next technical expectation is a return to the broken up trend line unless we just go straight down from here.  The China virus will be the reason given but we know the market was overextended on several indicators.  Not to mention the sell signal that we got from a pretty reliable indicator that simply took a while to manifest itself.  That is why I'm pretty confident that any upside from here can be shorted.  The trouble is that we may just go straight down.  GE lost 1/4 on average volume.  Gold was up about $8 on the futures, while the US dollar was a bit higher.  The gold shares lost ground though, with the XAU losing 1 2/3 and GDX down 1/8.  Volume was average.  My GDX February calls are still in the black.  It was also a one day reversal for the gold shares to the downside.  That tells me that the decline here in stocks is for real and not just the minor sell offs that we've seen lately.  Traders are selling what they have to meet margin calls.  Now I could be wrong in my assessment so we'll watch and see what occurs in the coming days to be sure.  It certainly isn't a positive when the gold shares decline in the face of gold gains.  But I don't think that it is as negative for the gold shares as it looks.  I could be wrong.  Mentally I'm a bit annoyed that I just didn't buy some SPY puts on Friday.  Once again I just wasn't quick enough during the trading session to do what was called for.  Hopefully I won't make that mistake if we see some kind of snap back to the trend line rally.  However the option premiums are now all blown out and very overpriced each direction.  So the timing of the SPY February put purchase will have to be pretty good if there is any money to be made.  At this point I can only watch, wait and be ready if the opportunity presents itself.  The VIX blasted up to the 19 level today.  The short term indicators are just about completely overbought already.  Another negative session should do the trick there.  We've got the Fed meeting for the next two days.  Perhaps something positive out of there will provide us with a bump up to buy the puts.  We can only hope at this point.  What markets that were open in Asia and Europe got slammed.  China is now closed for the rest of the week due to the holiday and virus.  I don't expect any quick turnarounds tonight.  We'll see how it goes tomorrow.