Still heading lower as the Dow fell 139 points on expiration heavy volume. The advance/declines were around 3 to 1 negative. The summation index is heading down. It could have been worse as the Dow was off 400 at one point. Perhaps a temporary bottom is now in place or the buying simply could have been expiration related. We'll know more after the price action next week. The NASDAQ still led the way lower but it too came up from the lows of the day. The S&P broke through the 3900 level and closed below it. That is not a plus. The summation index is moving down and approaching the zero line. That means that the market has the chance to simply fall apart in the coming days. I'm not saying it's going to happen but the potential is there. We've got the Fed next week and it should be a waiting game until Wednesday. Perhaps we'll get some short covering ahead of the meeting because there's really no reason to be a buyer at this point. Gold bounced back six bucks. The US dollar was slightly lower and so were interest rates. The XAU and GDX had fractional gains on good volume. The gold shares did come up off of the lows for the session. My open order for the GDX October calls wasn't filled and I'm considering changing it to get the long position. The gold shares continue to act well relatively here and I do think that the October call options are the way to go. I'll reconsider this idea over the weekend. Mentally I'm feeling somewhat remorse for not holding on to the SPY September puts longer. I did not have the patience or the nerve to hang on until today which turned out to be the proper strategy. I had considered it on Tuesday after the big drop but could not bring myself to do it. Trading and regrets sometimes go hand in hand. More importantly though is the ability to forget the last trade and keep moving forward. Not easy but it is part of the game. The VIX was barely higher and capped again at the 28 level. The short term indicators here are trying to roll over which would imply higher stock prices for the near term. I'm not exactly sure that is going to happen. I haven't had a good handle on the VIX lately. Plenty of work to do over the weekend to get ready for next week. An extra week in the October option cycle doesn't make things any easier. Asia and Europe were both lower to finish the trading week. It's Friday afternoon and time for a break.