Andy,
No, no, no. Don’t buy calls in a falling market. Sell them. How to know when prices are falling? The bars on a weekly chart are red, red, red.
Seriously. This market timing stuff ain’t rocket science, especially if you do two things.
#1 Give your TV to Goodwill and cancel every subscription to newspapers or financial magazines you have. (The “news” is noise, never timely, and mostly self-serving nonsense.)
#2, Once a week, preferably on a weekend when the hysteria of daily market action has ceased, mark yourself to market and chart some of the key indexes. The market herself will tell you what she’s doing better, faster, and more accurately than the talking heads.
If you do want an analyst/forecaster worth listening to, consider Jim Rickards or Doug Casey. Both think, speak, and write clearly and well. Ignore everyone else, for this reason. Though others might occasionally be right, the last thing you want in your mental life is clutter and monkey chatter. (“The man who has two watches never knows what time it really is.”)
Meanwhile, get hold of Ben Stein’s book. Work your way through it and take its lessons to heart. https://www.amazon.com/Yes-You-Can-Time-Market/dp/0471430161