Lower to kick off the new week as the Dow fell 35 points on almost average volume. The advance/declines were around 3 to 1 negative. This should start the summation index to turn sideways. The overall market was weaker than the Dow with the NASDAQ leading the way lower. The S&P 500 remains short term overbought but not at an extreme. Not sure what our next SPY trade will be. Still nine days to go in the February option cycle. Not a lot of economic data due out this week. However there will be plenty of Fed speak beginning with Chairman Powell tomorrow. We are still on the sidelines for now. Gold had a weak bounce of five bucks after last weeks carnage. The US dollar was higher along with interest rates. The XAU was off 1 3/8, while GDX had a slight fractional loss. Volume was light. GDX has broken its up trend line that began in the beginning of November. It is currently finding support at around 30, which is also where the 50 day moving average lies. I suppose if we get brave maybe we'll try the February calls here as GDX is now short term oversold. We'll see. Mentally I'm doing better but not all the way back yet. Health is improving but not near 100%. The VIX was higher today and the short term indicators here have turned up. However as long as the VIX remains below the 20 level we'll keep looking for higher stock prices going forward. The VIX is at 19 and change. Asia and Europe were lower with the exception of Japan. We'll see if Chairman Powell gets things going one way or the other tomorrow.