Sellers showed up today in the final hour as the Dow fell 550 points on good volume. The advance/declines were negative. The summation index continues to move up. The market was trending lower for much of the day and then fell apart with an hour to go. No index led the way as the big 3 were all down 1 1/2%. The short term indicators for the S&P 500 have now rolled over but they're still overbought. Perhaps it was just an end of the month gyration. I don't think that was are about to start a huge move lower but my ideas haven't exactly panned out lately. As I have already stated, things can't go straight up indefinately. Gold was up a few bucks on the futures. The US dollar was higher and interest rates remained steady. The XAU was off 1 1/4, while GDX shed about 1/3. Volume was light. Volume has tapered off for the gold shares lately. I'm not sure what to make of that. The Bollinger bands are contracting on the daily chart which implies a big move coming up. As always, which way is the question. Overbought on the indicators for GDX but there's still room for them to move higher. I suppose that if it gets back to the up trend line at 37 I'll give the calls a try. Not exactly sure if that is the right idea though. Losing trades generally impede confidence. Mentally I'm feeling OK. The VIX was higher and that fits a down market. The up trend line from November has proven to be still intact. The short term indicators here have turned up but not decidedly so. However if the trend line remains in place it could give the bears some courage. Looking back the correct strategy this week would have been to wait until that line for the VIX was touched and then purchasing the SPY April puts. However my focus was on other indicators and you have to go with what you are doing at the time. But it's always a good idea to look at all the angles. Europe and Asia were lower overnight. We'll see how the market reacts to the employment report tomorrow.