Sellers took the upper hand today as the Dow fell 431 points on average volume. The advance/declines were around 3 to 1 negative. The summation index continues lower. The NASDAQ led the way down. My thesis of higher prices this week did not pan out. My ideas have been wrong lately and I will have to turn that around. My take on the technical indicators is off so we'll remain on the sidelines for now. The short term indicators for the S&P 500 have now turned back down and are mid-range. So far all in all it has been a sideways week for the S&P. Not the usual price action for options expiration week. I'm not sure what's in store next for the stock market. Gold finished up a couple bucks on the futures. The US dollar was a bit higher along with interest rates. The XAU and GDX finished little changed on light volume. They did come up from the lows of the session. GDX remains short term oversold which normally we'd be looking to get some GDX calls here. However after already failing with this idea via this weeks losing trade, we're remaining on the sidelines for now here too. There is a short term down trend line now in place on the daily chart for GDX. Mentally I'm feeling OK. The VIX spiked up today and closed above the 20 level. The short term indicators here have either turned back up or are now moving sideways. Not sure what this means going forward. A holiday weekend is upon us after we get through expiration Friday tomorrow. Not sure what to expect but can't anticipate much buying before a long weekend with the way this week has gone so far. Europe and Asia were higher overnight. We'll close out the week tomorrow.