Hedging

[Ok Red]

Just wanted to share my experience with the group...

About a month ago I started seeing incongruities between reported data and market direction. It just didn't fit. So initiated positions as follows:

SH - 4% of my portfolio
SDS - 1%
ETU - 5%

The approximate positions now:

SH - 5% of my portfolio
SDS - 1.6%
ETU - 6%


Just for info, the remainder of my port is 28% individual issue bonds, 50% cash, 8% in my 20 DGI equities, and the remainder is in international / EM ETFs.

I'm not a trader, so the positions are not huge bets. I was just looking to protect my portfolio. These positions have turned out to be an excellent counterweight during the current storm, as my portfolio has hardly changed (actually up a few percent). Based on the last week, I might have been more aggressive had my equity positions been a greater portion of my port.

I'm sure there are more sophisticated hedging strategies, but this one sure seems to have worked fairly well considering the composition of the port at present. Plus it's simple.

There ya have it

[Dividend Watcher]

Certainly should be working for you about now. Congrats.

I'm curious, what stats were you using that didn't make sense with market direction?

Also, did you sell any positions to take the short side or did that come out of the cash portion?

You have more guts than I. I know I'm terrible with market timing so I don't bother trying.