Most stock indexes got whacked today but the Dow managed to end up with a small gain of 11 points on heavy volume. The advance/declines were positive. The summation index is still in an upwards sloping channel. We got a signal last night for a big move from the McClellan oscillator and we saw that today. The NASDAQ fell over 2 1/2% and the S&P 500 lost 1 1/4%. A last minute bounce kept things from being worse. So much for my thought on new all time highs showing up soon. The short term indicators for the S&P are now heading down. Barring a turnaround tomorrow it appears that stocks are going lower from here. The NASDAQ is short term oversold, staying that way and is never a good thing. The question is who would be buying stocks ahead of the weekend and the Fed next week? Gold got clobbered as well with the futures losing $107. The US dollar was a bit lower and interest rates dropped dramatically in a flight to safety. No flight to safety for gold though. The XAU fell 19 1/2 and GDX lost 5 points. Volume was good to the downside. The short term indicators for GDX are heading down now with some already oversold. GDX has been traveling in a downward channel since the beginning of September. It remains in that channel but we are now down to the lower rail. A break of that will lead to more selling for the gold shares. The technical damage on the weekly chart after todays price action is hard to ignore. Unless there is a miracle turnaround for the gold shares tomorrow, the GDX November call idea will probably be a bad idea. My open order for the GDX November calls did get filled today. I had placed the order price in case of a drop for GDX so the entry price was not as bad as it could have been. That said I probably could have done a little better getting in. The trade is showing a small loss. Plenty of time for this trade to work but the techncial damage to the GDX chart cannot be taken lightly. Mentally I'm feeling OK. The VIX was higher today but did close below the 20 level. The short term indicators here have turned back up. Volatility has made a comeback and the VIX hasn't even closed above 20 yet. It could be that things are just starting to get interesting. I'm in the next trade now and it hasn't started out as you'd normally like things to go. Once again the management of the trade will determine how things turn out. Let's hope that I do a better job than the last time. Asia and Europe closed lower as it looks like a worldwide exit for stocks. I'll keep an eye on any overnight developments and we'll close out the trading week tomorrow.