Sellers showed up today as rising interest rates seemed to matter again. The Dow fell 569 points on good volume. The advance/declines were about 4 to 1 negative. The summation index is starting to move down. The NASDAQ and the S&P 500 were relatively weaker. The short term technical indicators for the S&P have turned lower. It appears that a retest of the recent lows is in progress. The question is whether or not they'll hold. I certainly don't have the answer but there is a potential head and shoulders top forming for the S&P. If the potential turns into reality the lows won't hold. My SPY October puts are shwoing a profit. Gold dropped $15 on the December contract as interest rates and the US dollar rose. The XAU and GDX had fractional losses on good volume. The gold shares did come up from the lows of the session and remain oversold. GDX is pretty far form its 50 day moving average so I would expect a move at least back towards there. Is it worth trading though? It may already be too late. I'll consider it but also try to keep my focus on the SPY trade. Mentally I'm feeling OK. The VIX spiked up and now is comfortably above the 20 level. The short term indicators here have turned up implying more selling to come. I'm not exactly sure that's going to happen. The only thing we can say for sure is that volatility has returned for now. It does appear that if the head and shoulders top pattern on the S&P is valid, we'll be heading down to 4200. Hasn't happned yet though. Asia was mixed and Europe lower overnight. We'll see what tomorrow brings.