Selling today as the Dow fell 341 points on good volume. The advance/declines were almost 4 to 1 negative. The summation index is back to moving down. It could have been worse but most indices finished well up from their morning lows after a gap lower on the open. The Dow led things down and that isn't the most bearish scenario. Most of the short term indicators for the S&P 500 remain overbought. I'm not sure what's coming next here for stocks. There was no follow through to the new all time high in the S&P. Other indicators that we look at are mixed. Some of the longer term ones are in areas that usually precede market strength. Some shorter term ones are showing signs of a near term top. I'm on the sidelines with regards to the SPY options for now. Gold got spanked as the futures dropped $58. The US dollar was higher and interest rates finished little changed. The XAU fell 11 1/4, while GDX lost 2 3/4. Volume was about average. The short term indicators for GDX have turned back down in oversold territory. GDX has now broken below the area of consolidation that appeared to be forming a bottom to me. Needless to say my GDX October calls lost even more ground and I dumped them for an 85% loss. The stop loss order that I had in that didn't get filled earlier this week was set for a 50% loss. So I tacked on another 35% by being stubborn in this trade. My mistake was not just getting out when the stop loss wasn't filled. The 50% losses are part of the game. The only saving grace is that there wasn't much money put into this idea, as it failed the last time that I tried it as well. Will I try this trade again? Probably. Some of the medium term technical indicators that we watch have been stretched to extremes for the US dollar and US interest rates. Meaning that these two products cannot continue to rise forever. There has to be some kind of consolidation or move in the opposite direction to relieve the out of whack condition. A drop in the dollar and yields would normally be supportive for gold. When that occurs, combined with the oversold condition for GDX, it should lead to some kind of positive price action on the gold shares. Perhaps moving out to the GDX November calls will be the next attempt. Mentally I'm feeling a bit perplexed as the GDX losing trade does not help with the trading confidence factor. However it must be put in the rear view mirror because the market doesn't care. The VIX was just up slightly today. The short term indicators are now tracking sideways. The daily candlestick chart here still looks like it wants to go lower. Europe and Asia were down overnight. I'll keep an eye on tonights headlines.