A lower start to options expiration week as the Dow fell 165 points on good volume.  The advance/declines were negative.  The summation index continues to move sideways.  AAPL announced last night that it would miss its 1st quarter results due to the China virus.  This had markets sinking overnight but the US held up rather well considering.  The NASDAQ sold off but ended up with a slight gain by the close today.  The S&P was down but it wasn't as bad as it could have been.  the market is showing amazing strength despite the negative news.  I cannot explain it but it is worth paying attention to.  If you got short this morning it appears that you will get squeezed once again.  The major stock indices do remain short term overbought.  GE was off a few cents on average volume.  The technical indicators here have rolled over.  Gold took off to the upside as the futures gained twenty bucks.  The US dollar was up too in a flight to safety.  When I saw gold rising last night, I put in an order for the March GDX calls.  It wasn't filled.  The gold shares rallied as well.  The XAU was up almost four points, while GDX added 7/8.  Volume was heavy.  The gold shares are breaking out so I have placed another order for the GDX March calls at a higher strike price.  I do think that this is a move worth chasing.  I should have perhaps simply bought the calls today at the market but I didn't.  Maybe my lack of confidence played a role in my actions today.  I do think that the gold shares have just shown us which way the breakout will occur.  Mentally I'm feeling OK.  The VIX had a gap up at the open and has plenty of room to go higher.  Whether or not it does is the question.  We are still short term oversold there despite todays drop.  When the market is being hit with bad news form AAPL combined with more China virus fears and it holds up the way it did today tells me that it is most likely going to go higher in the near term.  It may just be options expiration related but it must be taken into consideration.  We'll see how the foreign markets digest todays US market action and go from there.  There still seems to be plenty of money that wants to gravitate to stocks in the US.  Europe and Asia were lower overnight.  We'll keep an eye on this evenings headlines.