Some follow through downside today as the Dow dropped 146 points on good volume. The advance/declines were negative. The summation index is still moving up. We sold off hard early today and then spent the rest of the session moving sideways. Once again the NASDAQ led the way down. We'll get the jobs report tomorrow and I'm not sure that will turn things around. The short term indicators for the major averages have turned down and they're not oversold yet. Some of the indices are holding up better than others but the NASDAQ lagging it certainly isn't a very bullish backdrop. Selling off into the close is not a positive. So we'll see how things shake out tomorrow. Gold fell $15 on the futures. The US dollar was higher along with interest rates. The XAU dropped 2 1/4, while GDX shed over 1/2. Volume was good to the downside. I did end up purchasing some GDX November calls. They are at break even. It looks like a decent entry if we can get some kind of bounce from here in GDX. Not completely short term oversold yet here although one of the hourly chart indicators says it's time to buy. I do not plan on holding this trade for long depending on how it goes from here. The breakdown in both NEM and GOLD is not encouraging. However an oversold bounce is not out of the question. Mentally I'm feeling OK. The VIX once again was lower with a decline in prices. This doesn't fit the normal pattern for this indicator. I don't know why it's acting strangely lately. The VIX remains oversold yet stocks are going lower. Not sure what to expect with the VIX going forward. So we are now in the next trade and I'm not really sure if this was a good idea. The fundamentals for gold remain in place as negative. The reverse head and shoulders pattern for GDX appears to be forming a second right shoulder. But if GDX doesn't hold in here, the pattern will fail and this trade will probably end up a loser. So what happens with GDX tomorrow should be pretty important for the outcome of this trade. We'll see. Europe and Asia were lower last night. We'll close out the trading week tomorrow.