Sellers took center stage as we had a huge gap down on the open, saw an anemic bounce and went sideways for the rest of the day. The Dow got crushed as did all the major stock indices as it fell over a thousand points on heavy volume. The advance/declines were 13 to 1 negative. The summation index is moving lower. The NASDAQ continues to lead the way lower as big tech stocks have fallen out of favor. The S&P 500 lost almost 3%. Still short term oversold on the indicators here. Gapping lower on the daily chart and it looks like it's headed to the 200 day moving average at 5000. I'm not sure what is going on here but the markets always know more than we do. Sell the rallies will probably be the case for a while now. Hard to say when we'll see the bounce I was looking for and todays slight rise might have been it. Maybe today was a short term wash out for stocks. But if we do get a bounce I would not expect it to last. Gold was off twenty bucks on the futures. The US dollar continued lower and interst rates finished flat after being lower early on. The gold shares followed the market lower but did finished up from the lows on the day. The XAU fell 5 1/8, while GDX lost 1 1/8. Volume was good to the downside. I adjusted my open order for the GDX August calls overnight and it did get filled first thing in the morning. It was a lousy entry as the gold shares dropped much more than I expected. GDX also broke the up trend line that began back in March on the daily chart. Then why try the calls here? On days like this I like to think that things get out of hand in some markets. It presents opportunity if you are able to keep your wits about you. The gold shares dropped much more than gold today and that doesn't add up in my book. Unless gold is simply headed straight down from here. Even with the poor entry the trade is showing a small profit. I'll see if I can manage it properly from here. GDX did finish below its 50 day moving average though. Mentally I'm feeling tired. The VIX soared to 65 this morning. Moves that high are very rare and point to one thing. Panic. It closed at 38 and now is comfortably above the 20 level so volatility will rule here for a while. Some of the short term indicators are overbought now on the VIX and some aren't. Not sure what that means or where the VIX is headed next. The only certain thing here is the uncertainty. But there is money to be made in this August option cycle, that's for sure. It was worldwide carnage for stock markets as buyers have fled the scene. Japan crashed and was down over 10% in a day. Interesting times and I'll be keeping an eye on things overnight.