Today's market started out looking like we were going over the edge... sell everything!! But news from the Treasury auction appears to have brought some buyers back into the market and repaired some, but not all, of the damage. The S&P 500 closed for the second day below its 200 dma (200 day moving average), but it closed $10 above its session lows. This area of about $875 is the support level that the S&P 500 found back in May. That is why I found today's market action somewhat (not very!) encouraging; if we break this support level, it could get nasty. Today's trading volume was the highest in two weeks, but I am unsure if that is a good or a bad sign. I could argue stronger volume on the severe downward move throughout most of the day was very negative. However, one could also argue that the higher volume reflects confidence that the intraday lows were seen as buying opportunities. Reading tea leaves isn't easy.

RUT closed at $479.6. I still have the 480/450 put spreads from my July iron butterfly. Today's action wasn't sufficient to cause the entire trade to go into the red, so I decided to give it more time. This was a debatable call - a more conservative trader would have closed the puts at the open this morning and locked in a gain on the trade.

The market tripped the adjustment triggers on my Aug iron condors: the delta of the $430 puts hit 21 today. I bought one Sept $430 put and cut my position delta to +$30; the position theta = +$41, which gives us a weak, but acceptable, theta/delta ratio. The position P/L stands at +$210. This hedge should hold our position losses to under $1000 for RUT prices as low as $460 - and that's the point; we are buying time and giving the market a chance to recover.