My quick assessment of the landscape is that China is a pain in the ass and definitely warrants attention. A lot of companies I follow are like broken records with their double digit growth stories out of China. That part of the balance sheet has just gotten a little more uncertain for possibly a couple quarters. Of course, it isn't the only emerging market, but it is undoubtedly a significant component of the valuations for many companies. Have to see how it pans out.

The Fed meanwhile is in an interesting situation. What do they do? Raise rates and pretty much provide the nail in the coffin that will deflate this market and likely bring contraction to the economy and end up looking like the market antichrist in the process. Don't raise rates and companies may still get clipped if the slowdown that is being seen in China spreads to the U.S. and they end up in the inevitable picture where everyone is looking at each other and going "...uh oh..."

In my own case, I'm still doing well from a performance standpoint for the current period, but I really would have liked to be a little better hedged going into this high volatility environment. I haven't lost any principal, still have some profits that have yet to be eroded, and can still utilize a couple of option strategies to protect my downside slightly, but a cataclysmic market slide would bring me into the negatives for the period.

By not getting those shorts in place completely, I've made the duration of this volatility a lot more of a pain in the ass than it needs to be. That's where it is right now for me. No where near a panic in the "OH THE HUMANITY!" sense, but I definitely ended up staying in tonight and modeling some different potential strategies and that will likely continue tomorrow for the first part of the day and into next week. Definitely not the usual way it goes.