The selling continues heading into the weekend as the Dow fell 286 points on average volume. The advance/declines were close to 3 to 1 negative. The summation index is heading down. The NASDAQ continues to lead the way lower. At this rate it doesn't look like the 4200 level will hold for the S&P 500 but I'm still a believer that it will. The S&P has made it down to and closed below its 200 day moving average. However there's still more room for the short term indicators to go lower. Perhaps the market knows things that we don't and that is usually the case. The NASDAQ closed at a new low for its decline. It is a nervous market with geo-political tensions taking over instead of the usual economic data. This too will eventually pass and the sidelines isn't the worst place to be for now. Gold was up ten bucks on the futures but off of the best levels on the day. The US dollar was slightly lower and interest rates fell. The XAU and GDX had very slight fractional losses and also finished far from the highs on the session. I did sell all my positions in the GDX October calls after the market opened. The timing was dreadful as the gold shares rallied after I sold the calls. Two of the positions managed to show a profit and one had a loss. The entry on this trading idea was premature and the exit followed suit on the last day to trade. Having three separate positions for the same trade is not the normal way that I do things. However the technical signal was there and I believed in it despite the trade not working in the beginning. Having an extra week to work with certainly was a factor. But the overall timing was horrible. It took a war in the Middle East for this trade to not be a huge loss. The overall trade somehow produced a profit of a little over 100%. Could and should have been better. Doesn't matter now and we're moving on. Already looking at the GDX November calls. A snap back to the longer term trend line that was broken is the next technical expectation. If and when that occurs I'll take a closer look at those GDX calls. Mentally I'm feeling a bit miffed at the way that I got out of todays trade. Had no patience but I don't usually hold on to option positions to the very last trading day. The VIX was higher again today and is above the 20 level. That spells trouble for stocks if we stay above there. The short term indicators are overbought now though. Not sure what's next here. We're still at the mercy of headline risk. We will be checking the charts over the weekend. Asia and Europe are still moving down as the selling around the globe continues. It's Friday afternoon and time for a rest.