The market fell apart today. The Dow lost 943 points on heavy volume. The advance/declines were over 10 to 1 negative. The summation index is heading lower. We'll take our cues from there as we should. Whatever I've said about a rise in stocks is wrong. Todays price action confirms that. When there's buy signals that don't work you have to take notice. Oversold now and staying that way and that isn't a good sign going forward. I certainly don't know what the story is here but the market does. I'm not sure how far down the S&P 500 will go but the next support is at 3200. Unknown to me why this is happening but if it is a double top here the measuring objective is around 2900 or so for the S&P. That's pretty far from where we are right now. The summation index is not near the crash zone but I suppose that doesn't mean it can't happen. I guess we'll see if 3200 holds and take it from there. GE bucked the trend and was up 1/3 on extremely heavy volume. Surprise earnings report there. Gold got clobbered as the US dollar was higher. The October futures contract lost $36. The XAU fell almost ten points, while GDX shed 2 1/3. Volume was double what it's been lately as it expanded to the downside. My GDX November calls are now solid losers. I'm thinking that if I give it a few days I can cut the loss a bit from where it is now. Maybe. I did place an order for some other GDX November calls at a lower strike price but it wasn't filled. That may not be the best idea here but the gold share index is oversold and the technical indicators are in a spot where they've rallied from in the recent past. However if the market continues to drop like it did today, it will take the gold shares with it. If the gold futures can't hold the $1850 level, this idea will fail. I probably shouldn't chase things lower here so we'll see what I decide over the evening. Mentally I'm feeling OK. The VIX jumped to over 40 and is very overbought. I guess the question is how high will it go and how long will this last? Volatility is through the roof but it can go higher. One of the more prudent things to do right now is simply head for the sidelines. In my view, unknown market forces are at work here. Oversold and staying that way doesn't happen often. The ensuing declines are usually pretty severe. The reason I'm a believer in the gold shares here is because the technical indicators both short and medium term are in spots that have led to rallies. Will this time be different? It could be but the odds say otherwise. Sometimes in markets like these, you can't be afraid to take a chance and support your ideas. The volatility works both ways and does create opportunities if you are able to take advantage of them. Tomorrow will prove to be another interesting session. We've got the GDP report and earnings from a few of the big tech companies. Money is heading for the exits though as Europe had big drops in stocks. Asia was slightly lower but should play catch up tonight. We'll keep an eye on the overnight markets and see how things go tomorrow.