Heading lower as buyers remain on the sidelines. The Dow fell 652 points on good volume. The advance/declines were negative. The summation index remains in an upward sloping channel. The NASDAQ only had a minor loss today while the S&P 500 dropped modestly. Stocks cannot gain any sort of traction to the upside and I don't see when that will change. The short term indicators for the S&P 500 are moving down with some already oversold. Near term up trend lines have been broken with perhaps some support at the 7550 area. The Dow lead the way lower today. Gold continues to fall with the futures off $45. The US dollar was higher along with interest rates. The XAU lost 6 3/8, while GDX shed 1 1/2. Volume was about average. The short term indicators for GDX are trending lower and are yet to be completely oversold. GDX closed below the lower rail on its decending trend channel and that probably spells more trouble for the gold shares. My GDX November calls are now showing a modest loss as this trade is clearly in trouble. Debating when to take the loss or hold out for some type of bounce given that these options still have a month to go. At this point it looke like this was the wrong time for this idea again. Mentally I'm feeling OK. The VIX was up again today but did close below the 20 level. Its short term indicators are still moving higher with room to go. Volatility has picked up and perhaps anything goes for this indicator going forward. Stock markets are in uncommon ground right now as the usual technical indicators are not matching up with the current price movements. Probably heading to the sidelines is the most prudent course of action until things settle down. But the prospects of things returning to a more normal environment are dim at best with the Fed coming up, the US election and the ongoing geoplitical problems. I'll continue to go over the charts this weekend and try to figure out what to do with the GDX call trade. Asia was mixed and Europe lower to finish the week. It's Friday afternoon and time for a break.