It was a back and forth session as the Dow fell 131 points on lighter volume. The advance/declines were negative. The summation index is trending sideways. It looks like the backing and filling has begun but that could change tomorrow. The NASDAQ did not lead the way lower here and that is a plus for the bulls. We'll get the end of the month position squaring tomorrow before we head into October. Waiting for the market reaction to the jobs report at this point. The S&P is hanging around its 50 day moving average. If this continues, I might try the SPY October puts ahead of the employment report. We've come up about halfway on the short term techncial indicators for the S&P 500. GE was off a few cents on lighter volume. Gold continues higher, the futures rose $15. The US dollar was lower again. The XAU was up 1 2/3, while GDX added 1/2. Volume remains light here. I did place another open order for the GDX October calls but it would take a decline to get filled. If GDX continues to move up I'll cancel the order. Today was a repeat of yesterday. Gold itself had a fairly good day but the gold shares didn't follow suit. That is not usually a sign of strength for the precious metals complex. Mentally I'm feeling OK. The VIX finished barely higher despite a drop in stocks. Once again this is a tough indicator for me to get a correct read on lately. I'm leaning towards the SPY puts again for a short term trade if things set up properly. I do not think that we're going to simply move higher from here to new all time highs again but I could be wrong. The summation index is trying to turn around and down trends lines have been broken on some of the major indices. However that could mean a sideways market for a while and not a sustained up trend. I suppose that at the moment I don't have as good a good handle on things as I'd like to. I'll leave the GDX call order out there for now and see what happens. Asia and Europe were mixed overnight. We'll finish the month of September tomorrow.