Some follow through selling today as the Dow fell 281 on extremely heavy triple witch expiration volume. The advance/declines were a little better than 2 to 1 negative. The summation index is moving down. The S&P closed right about at the 50 day moving average and is short term oversold. So we could see a bounce early next week. Or not. You can somewhat make a case for a small head and shoulders top for the S&P 500 on the daily candlestick chart. If valid the measuring objective would be around 3700. Most of the major averages are short term oversold but in down trends they tend to stay that way. The technical indicators for the weekly charts have plenty of room to move lower. So unless we see a quick turnaround we are in the next leg down for the bear market. We'll take our cues from the summation index and it's heading lower. Gold found buyers once again as the futures were up $15. The US dollar was slightly higher and rates were mixed again. The XAU and GDX had fractional gains on lighter than lately volume. Yes, we still like the GDX January call idea as gold seems to catch a bid with any decline lately. However at the rate it has been going we won't be seeing GDX reach short term oversold anytime soon. Perhaps that will change next week. Mentally I'm feeling OK. The VIX dropped with a down market, once again not the normal order of things. The indicators here remain mid-range. Not sure what to expect with the VIX next. The bears have come out of hibernation before Christmas. Will that mean no Santa Claus rally this year? Time will tell on that. Only two weeks left for the 2022 trading year. Normally I'd expect things to slow down with the holidays upon us but this market doesn't seem in the mood as yet. An extra week for the January option cycle so the premiums are higher than usual. We'll be checking the charts this weekend to try and come up with some new ideas. Asia and Europe were lower as it's a worldwide exit from stocks. It's Friday afternoon and time for a break.