It was a very volatile session and not what was expected for the beginning of a normally quiet holiday week. The Dow managed to hang on to a gain of 17 points on above average volume. The advance/declines were negative. The summation index is moving lower. Both the NASDAQ along with the S&P 500 had one day reversals to the downside, opening higher and closing lower. The market rallied early on the announcement the Fed chairman had been re-nominated to his position. An hour into the session we then had a sharp selloff. The market climbed its way back and we had decent gains going into the final hour. The market then dropped like a stone to finish the day negative in many of the major averages. I'm not sure what's going on here but clearly there's something brewing. Gold got clobbered on the Fed re-appointment as the futures fell over $40. The US dollar continues its climb and interest rates jumped. The XAU lost 2 1/2, while GDX dropped 2/3. Volume was good to the downside. My open order for the GDX January calls got filled. However it now appears that the inverse head and shoulders breakout on GDX has failed. The short term technical indicators for GDX are at mid-range. Unless GDX somehow holds in here at the 33 level, this trade will be a loser. The only thing this trade has going for it now is time. There is an up trend line at 32 but at this rate that won't hold either. We'll see what happens tomorrow. Mentally I'm feeling OK. The VIX jumped today and closed above both its 50 and 200 day moving averages. The short term indicators here are getting to overbought. Another day of decline would get us there. I expected this week to be benign and quiet with an upside bias. So far it has been anything but that. I'm not sure why. The Dow is overdue for a big upside day. I thought it would be today after this mornings announcement but it looks like the market has other ideas. Stay tuned. Asia and Europe were mixed overnight. We'll keep an eye on tonights developments.