A one day reversal to the downside as stocks gapped open higher and closed lower near the lows for the day. The Dow fell 234 points on good volume. The advance/declines were negative. The summation index is moving down. The NASDAQ led the way lower. The S&P 500 remains short term oversold and it looks like we are heading down for a retest of the recent lows after todays price action. I'm not sure what exactly is going on right now but volatility is in charge. I have no SPY trades in mind right now because the technicals are blown out as we are not in the normal market atmosphere. I could change my mind going forward but the risks here might outweigh the rewards. You've got to be quick and you've got to be nimble and those are not my strong suits. Gold dropped $4 on the futures. The US dollar was a little higher along with interest rates. The XAU fell 4 1/4, while GDX shed 7/8. Volume was light. The gold shares are following the overall market. My GDX August calls are now solid losers as I had my chances to get out with a small profit but did not take them. The gold shares had a one day downside reversal as well. The daily candlestick chart for GDX looks very bearish after todays price action. This trade is now in the cut the loss mode unless GDX has some kind of rally in the next two days. Not likely but who knows in the current volatile marketplace. Mentally I'm feeling a bit down after mismanaging yet another trade. But the market certainly doesn't care and you've just got to keep moving in this game. The VIX moved back up after being lower early on. The short term indicators have stalled and if they turn back up here we'll see more downside in a hurry. Hasn't happened yet though. Seven days to go in the August option cycle. Europe and Asia were both up overnight. We'll keep an eye on tonights developments.