September ended with a thud as the Dow fell 500 points on end of the month heavy volume. The advance/declines were negative. The summation index is moving down. The inflation data was a little worse than expected but after an initial small sell off the market had a morning rally. That didn't last either as sellers took over. The S&P 500 remains short term oversold and closed below the 3600 support level. The Dow led the way down today. We are long overdue for more than just the bounce that we saw on Wednesday but the market seems to have other plans. We have yet to see any sustained buying or a major bout of short covering. Getting even further away from the 50 day moving average for most of the major stock indices. That will not last forever. Gold was flat again on todays session, this time after being higher early on. The US dollar was little changed and interest rates rose a bit. The XAU gained 1 1/2, while GDX was up 3/8. Volume was good here again. Perhaps today was the day to dump the GDX October calls as GDX closed off of its highs for the day. Some of the very short term indicators got overbought. The GDX October calls that I have are still in the black though and the price and volume lately have been constructive to the bullish side. There's also 3 weeks left in the October option cycle so plenty of time remains. The weekly candlestick chart on GDX now has a bullish engulfing pattern on it. So I'm giving the gold shares the benefit of the doubt for now. Mentally I'm feeling OK. The VIX finished the day a bit lower and that does not fit with a down market. I'm not sure what's going on here with the VIX except that volatility is the rule for now. The S&P 500 closed on its 200 week moving average which should provide some support. However some of the other major stock indexes have already closed below this average on their weekly charts, including the NASDAQ and the Russell 2000. Next weeks price action will be perhaps more important than usual. Plenty of work to do over the weekend to get ready. Europe was up and Asia mixed again to finish out the trading week overseas. It's Friday afternoon and time for a break.