It was a day of hanging around as we opened lower and stayed that was for much of the session. The Dow fell 98 points on heavy volume. The advance/declines were better than 2 to 1 negative. The summation index is moving lower. The NASDAQ led the way down but the market did finish up from the worst levels of the day. The employment data came in about where expected. At least the market didn't fall off a cliff like yesterday but it's hard to say where we go from here. The S&P did hold on its recent lows but other indexes did not. The S&P 500 is still short term oversold. Gold was up $7 on the futures. The US dollar was slightly lower and interest rates slightly higher. The XAU lost 2 points while GDX shed 1/3 or so. Volume was lighter here. I did place another order for the GDX May calls but it wasn't filled. I'll reconsider this idea over the weekend. Gold up and the gold shares down again doesn't inspire confidence in the calls. However the gold shares are being dragged lower by the overall market. Mentally I'm feeling OK. The VIX spiked above 35 early and then turned around to finish lower on the day. It looks like it wants to continue downwards but as we've seen lately anything goes. Not getting a good feel for where the VIX is going. The overall stock market has been oversold for a few weeks now and I'm not sure this will continue except that we're in a down market. We get some good one day rallies but then the sellers return. There is still two weeks left in the May option cycle so there's certainly time remaining for a decent trade. I'll be looking for something over the weekend. We'll be getting some inflation data next week and that is sure to be a market mover. For now we'll look ahead to checking the charts on Saturday and Sunday to come up with some new ideas. Europe and Asia were both lower to close out the week. It's Friday afternoon and time for a break.