A bounce today as the Dow climbed 1985 points on the insane volume.  The advance/declines were better than 6 to 1 positive.  The summation index continues lower.  The markets were extremely oversold and some kind of bounce was needed to relieve the selling pressure.  But that doesn't mean that the selling is over.  Expiration next week could get pretty crazy.  However we are already in crazy mode with a national emergency declared this afternoon with the China virus.  It was quite a rough week for stocks with more turbulence no doubt on the way.  The option premiums are still way out of whack for the SPY.  Any trade there will have to be quick as things are changing constantly.  The sidelines are not a bad idea until things settle down too.  I still think that there is another leg down from here.  GE was up 2/3 on heavy volume.  Gold got crushed again and the futures lost over fifty bucks.  The US dollar was higher as it is the flight to safety choice for now.  Crazy price action in GDX in the final 5 minutes.  It moved down and up 2 1/2 points in that time span.  GDX finished down 3 1/3, while the XAU lost 7 1/2.  Volume was huge.  Today was the selling climax for GDX in my humble opinion.  GDX has lost almost 50% of its value in about 3 weeks.  Has gold lost 50% of its value?  Not even close.  This is what I mean about price inefficiencies and opportunity.  My GDX April calls are still showing a loss but I did place an order for some more at a lower strike price today but canceled it late due to the volatility.  I might try again on Monday but I think the chance has passed.  I just didn't have the guts to leave the trade in.  Could I be wrong about all this?  Yes.  Could the price of gold keep dropping here and bring down GDX with it even lower?  Yes.  These are crazy times.  I'll go over it all again this weekend and take it from there.  Mentally I'm just taking it a day at a time.  Still feeling down.  The VIX dropped a lot today from its lofty level and the short term technical indicators have started to roll over.  But volatility is still at a very elevated level and there is probably more downside to come.  The market fears the unknown and we're still in that kind of game for now due to the China virus.  Perhaps things to the downside will pause now.  That's just a hopeful guess on my part.  The decline here will last a while because the 1st quarter earnings reports will be horrible in most cases.  The economies around the world are basically shutting down for a while until things are under control.  No one knows how long that will take.  Most stock charts are blown out to the downside.  I'll ponder the possibilities over the weekend and decide what to do from there.  Most of Asia was lower overnight and Europe showed a slight gain.  It's Friday afternoon and time for a break.