New troubles for the market as it now frets over a couple of California banks going under. The Dow fell 345 points on heavy volume. The advance/declines were 6 to 1 negative. The summation index is moving down. The headline number for the jobs report was higher than expected but the underlying statistics were not as robust as predicted. An early sell off was met with a rally attempt. However that failed as the FDIC came in to take over in the California bank debacle. Obviously the fear is that there are more failures to come. Heavy selling to the downside is not a positive sign unless it is the final flush. Not sure that's what occured today. The S&P 500 remains short term oversold. It is now firmly below its 200 day moving average. The next area of support comes in at 3800. Gold rallied on fear today as the futures rose over $35. The US dollar was lower and interest rate yields plummeted. The gold shares initially jumped but then were sold off with the overall market. The XAU managed a gain of a point, while GDX added 1/2. Volume was heavy. The positive RSI divergence is still in place on the charts and would have been fulfilled today if the gold shares had managed to hold onto their gains. I do still have the GDX March call losing trade alive although I should have sold them this morning. Normally they would be worthless by now since they are far out of the money but the increase in volatility has given them life. Probably will hold on until Tuesdays inflation report at this point. Mentally I'm feeling OK. The VIX jumped again today and closed above its 200 day moving average. However it did finish well off of the highs for the session. The short term indicators have moved up but are not yet completely overbought. Plenty of fear and uncertainty out there at the moment. Margin calls ongoing to be sure. The weekly indicators for the S&P have plenty of room to move lower, so I'm not sure how far down we have to go. Option expiration week on tap as well. We'll go over the charts as usual this weekend and keep an eye on any new news developments too. Perhaps we'll look for a chance to play an oversold bounce in the S&P next week. Or not. We've still got the losing GDX call trade to book. Europe and Asia sold off into the weekend as the world markets try to figure out exactly what is going on. Basically it appears that a couple of banks made some losing bets and now have to face the music. The game treats all alike. It's Friday afternoon and time for a break.