Day trading hedging strategies

Hedging Trading Techniques - Introduction.

Hedging is one of the most common trading strategy. In addition, it is one of the most challenging strategies in the market today but one which all traders should be aware of. It has made many people such as hedge fund managers wealthy within a short period of time. It is however not an easy strategy.

A good way to look at the hedging strategy is by comparing it with one of the most common financial service in the market: insurance. Whenever you buy insurance, you are simply passing on the risk of any bad thing to a third party. For instance, if you have a motor vehicle accident, the risk will be passed to the insurer who will take care of the repairs. In the trading environment, when you hedge, you are simply taking an insurance cover against a negative event.

As I have explained in my previous articles, in trading, negative events will always be there. At times, even after doing in-depth analysis, the market will go against you. However, when you are hedged, you simply reduce the risk of large losses. Buying an insurance cover is a simple process. In fact, today with the internet, you can simply buy an insurance cover with a few clicks.

Hedging Trading - Prepare your Process.

As a trading strategy, hedging is a complicated process which entails the use of two securities or assets which have a negative correlation. You hedge an investment by making another investment. The goal of hedging is not to increase the profits for a trader. In fact, in the financial market, you can never get away from the risk-return tradeoff. Therefore, if you avoid a certain amount of risk, you on the other hand reduce the potential profits you can make.

Hedging Trading - Your Aim.

The goal of hedging is to reduce the amount of risk exposure in the market. Investors and traders using the hedging technique use complicated financial instruments called derivatives which include options and futures. A good example in understanding the hedging technique is considering two companies in the same industry. In this case, lets consider a company such as Airbus and Rolss Royce. Rolss Royce is a key supplier of airplane parts to Airbus. In this case, Airbus will be in deep trouble if Rolss Royce decides to hike its prices on the engines. Using the hedging technique therefore, Airbus can enter into a futures contract which enables it to buy the engines in future at a particular price. This future contract enables Airbus to plan ahead with the real numbers in mind. With this in mind, it is possible to hedge against all types of assets including interest rates, commodities, currencies, stocks, and indices. To hedge currencies, the goal is to identify 2 or 3 currency pairs that have a positive correlation and then taking opposite directions in the trades. Examples of these currency pairs include: EURUSD and GBPUSD, AUDUSD and GBPUSD, and JPYUSD and NZDUSD among others.

To identify the positive correlations between currency pairs, some statistical analysis should be done.

An Example of Hedging Trading.

I will use the charts below to show an example of how you can use the hedging technique.

In the above charts, it is clear that the AUDUSD pair has been on a strong downward trend of about 2000 pips in that week. On the other hand, the NZDUSD pair was on an uptrend with a higher move than the previous decline. As it can be seen, after the retrace of the weekly and daily chart, the best option was to buy NZDUSD and for safety purposes, take a short position on AUDUSD. In addition, if all the pairs fell, the Australian dollar would be more vulnerable and the NZD would have a relatively small decline. If on the other hand the decision was right, then the NZD would have bigger gains than the losses made on the AUD short.

Hedging Trading - Being Successful.

The goal of being successful is to identify two pairs of assets which have a positive correlation and then making decisions based on it. In addition, it is important to know that in hedging, the total profits you make per trade will be slightly lower than using other strategies such as scalping. The benefit is that hedging will protect you from the risks of losing all your funds.

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9 profitable intraday trading strategies (that you can use right now)

9 profitable intra-day forex trading strategies you can use right now!

People who succeed at day trading do three things very well:

They identify intra-day trading strategies that are tried, tested. They are 100% disciplined in executing those strategies. They stick to a strict money management regime.

Jump right to one you like, just click on it.

Momentum Reversal Trading Strategy.

Role Reversal Trading Strategy.

Heikin-Ashi Trading Strategy.

RSI Trading Strategy, 5 Systems + Back Test Results.

The Moving average crossover strategy.

The swing day trading strategy.

Candlestick patterns.

The Bollinger band squeeze strategy.

The narrow range strategy.

The 2 period RSI strategy.

Binary options trading strategy that generates 150% return.

Your probably thinking:

“How do I find intra-day trading strategies that actually work?”

And Are there some day trading rules that will help me to trade forex, commodities, stocks?

All you need to do is: set aside a few minutes of your day to tackle one of the following forex day trading strategies which I outline for you below.

The reality is this:

Few people are actually successfully day trading forex or other markets for a living,

That’s the uncomfortable fact of life that marketers don’t like to speak of! And those few people are most probably trading with other peoples money, like traders working for a bank or a hedge fund.

That means the stakes are not as high for them, as they are for a person trading their own capital.

That being said;

There are intra-day trading strategies beginners can use to maximise their chances to stay in the game for the long haul. These can be use in most markets like forex, commodities or stocks.

Because, ‘the long haul’ is where someone can turn their initial starting capital, into a retirement nest egg!

So, in this article I will show you everything you need to know to get started including:

Awesome forex day trading strategies that are used successfully every day. The main chart patterns associated with these forex trading strategies. Instructions for implementing the strategies.

Then I will tell you,

The simple truth is.

Learning to use and implement a basic intra-day trading strategies can cut your losses by 63% immediately and will increase your profitability chances in the long run.

MUST READ: Few Things About Risk Management Forex Trader Should Know.

So lets get down to business.

1.Momentum Reversal Trading Strategy.

#1 The strategy seeks trading opportunities through the combination of fundamental and technical analysis.

#2 It requires a trader to analyse the fundamental aspects of the traded currency to establish mid to long term trend first. Then it uses the price momentum, support and a resistance zones to spot market reversals.

#3 The strategy allows to enter the market at low risk and provide a large profit potential through advanced money management.

#4 All trades are planned in advance to give a trader enough time to enter the market every time. Most trades are placed as pending limit orders often executed during London’s session.

#5 The strategy works well on all major US Dollar crosses. It generates between 1-5 signals per month. All trades are entered and held for anything up to several weeks depending on the price action and the market fundamentals.

#6 The strategy has been traded in live markets for the last 15 months and its performance is clearly documented in the performance section.

The strategy uses a few indicators only:

Stochastic Oscillator ( multi-time frame) Support and resistance Fibonacci retracements.

After establishing your bias and long term trend through Commitments of Traders report, it’s time to switch to daily charts and look for a price reversal phase.

To define the price reversal you need to analyse the price on daily charts first and answer 3 simple questions:

Has the market been clearly falling or rallying recently? Is the weekly and daily stochastic showing overbought or oversold levels on daily charts? Is the price trading around major support or resistance zones?

In the USDJPY chart above you can see four examples of the price being in a reversal phase.

Setup #1 on the chart.

Weekly and daily stochastics are above 70 zone and the market has been in a substantial rally prior to that. A trader should be marking this zone as bearish and switching to intraday charts to seek a bearish reversal price pattern.

Similar to setup #1, price, after a few days of rally, it came back up to an overbought stochastics zone ( above 70) and is now trading around a major resistance zone. A trader will be marking this area as bearish and switching to intraday charts to seek a bearish reversal price pattern.

Once again, the momentum is now overbought and the price is forming a clear resistance. A trader will be marking this area as bearish and switching to intraday charts to seek a bearish reversal pattern.

The price declined and reached a support at 117 area. The momentum is now oversold. A trader will be marking this area as bullish and switching to intraday charts to seek a bullish reversal price pattern.

The above setups will be attempted only in the direction of the trend established by the trader during a fundamental analysis. The fundamentals were pointing to the downside in USDJPY. The first 3 setups would be considered and the 4th would be either ignored or entered as a counter trend position with a lower lot size.

Fore more information CLICK HERE.

2:The Moving average crossover strategy.

Moving average indicators are standard within all trading platforms, the indicators can be set to the criteria that you prefer.

For this simple day trading strategy we need three moving average lines,

The 20 period line is our fast moving average, the 60 period is our slow moving average and the 100 period line is the trend indicator.

This day trading strategy generates a BUY signal when the fast moving average ( or MA) crosses up over the slower moving average.

And a SELL signal is generated when the fast moving average crosses below the slow MA.

So you open a position when the MA lines cross in a one direction and you close the position when they cross back the opposite way.

How do you know if the price is beginning to trend?

Well, If the price bars stay consistently above or below the 100 period line then you know a strong price trend is in force and the trade should be left to run.

The settings above can be altered to shorter periods but it will generate more false signals and may be more of a hindrance than a help.

The settings I suggested will generate signals that will allow you to follow a trend if one begins without short price fluctuations violating the signal.

On the chart above I have circled in green four separate signals that this moving average crossover system has generated on the EURUSD daily chart over the last six months.

On each of those occasions the system made 600, 200, 200 and 100 points respectively.

I have also shown in red where this trading technique has generated false signals, these periods where price is ranging rather than trending are when a signal will most likely turn out to be false.

The first false signal in the above example broke even, the next example lost 35 points.

The above chart shows the first positive signal in detail, the fast MA crossed quickly down over the slow MA and the trend MA, generating the signal.

Notice how the price moved quickly away from the trend MA and stayed below it signifying a strong trend.

The second false signal is shown above in detail, the signal was generated when the fast MA moved above the slow MA, only to reverse quickly and signal to close the position.

Although the system is not correct all the time, the above example was correct 6/12 or 50% of the time.

We can immediately see how much more controlled and decisive trading becomes when a trading technique is used. There are no wild emotional rationalisation, every trade is based on a calculated reason.

3.Heikin-Ashi Trading Strategy.

Heikin-Ashi chart looks like the candlestick chart but the method of calculation and plotting of the candles on the Heikin-Ashi chart is different from the candlestick chart. This is one of my favourite forex strategies out there.

In candlestick charts, each candlestick shows four different numbers: Open, Close, High and Low price. Heikin-Ashi candles are different and each candle is calculated and plotted using some information from the previous candle:

Close price: Heikin-Ashi candle is the average of open, close, high and low price. Open price: Heikin-Ashi candle is the average of the open and close of the previous candle. High price: the high price in a Heikin-Ashi candle is chosen from one of the high, open and close price of which has the highest value. Low price: the high price in a Heikin-Ashi candle is chosen from one of the high, open and close price of which has the lowest value.

Heikin-Ashi candles are related to each other because the close and open price of each candle should be calculated using the previous candle close and open price and also the high and low price of each candle is affected by the previous candle.

Heikin-Ashi chart is slower than a candlestick chart and its signals are delayed (like when we use moving averages on our chart and trade according to them).

This could be an advantage in many cases of volatile price action.

This forex day trading strategy is very popular among traders for that particular reason.

It’s also very easy to recognise as trader needs to wait for the daily candle to close. Once new candle is populated, the previous one doesn’t re-paint.

You can access Heikin-Ashi indicator on every charting tool these days.

Lets see how a Heikin-Ashi chart looks like:

On the chart above; bullish candles are marked in green and bearish candles are marked in red.

The very simple strategy using Heikin-Ashi proven to be very powerful in back test and live trading.

The strategy combines Heikin-Ashi reversal pattern with one of the popular momentum indicators.

My favourite would be a simple Stochastic Oscillator with settings (14,7,3). The reversal pattern is valid if two of the candles (bearish or bullish) are fully completed on daily charts as per GBPJPY screenshot below.

Once the price prints two red consecutive candles after a series of green candles, the uptrend is exhausted and the reversal is likely. SHORT positions should be considered.

If the price prints two consecutive green candles, after a series of red candles, the downtrend is exhausted and the reversal is likely. LONG positions should be considered.

The raw candle formation is not enough to make this day trading strategy valuable. Trader needs other filters to weed out false signals and improve the performance.

MOMENTUM FILTER (Stochastic Oscillator 14,7,3)

We recommend to use a simple Stochastic Oscillator with settings 14,7,3.

I strongly advise you read Stochastic Oscillator guide first.

Once applied, it will show the overbought/oversold area and improve the probability of success.

Enter long trade after two consecutive RED candles are completed and the Stochastic is above 70 mark.

Enter short trade after two consecutive GREEN candles are completed and the Stochastic is below 30 mark.

To further improve the performance of this awesome day trading strategy, other filers might be used. I would recommend to place stop orders once the setup is in place.

In the long setup showed in the chart below, the trader would place a long stop order few pips above the high o the second Heinkin-Ashi reversal candle.

The same would apply to short setups, trader would place a sell stop order few pips below the low of the second reversal candle.

Accelerator Oscillator filter.

As another tool you could use the standard Accellarator Oscillator. This is pretty good indicator for daily charts. It re-paints sometimes, but mostly it tends to stay the same once printed. Every bar is populated at midnight. How to use it? After Heikin-Ashi candles are printed, confirm the reversal with Accellarator Oscillator.

For Long trades: If two consecutive GREEN candles are printed, wait for the AC to print the green bar above the 0 line on the daily charts.

For Short trades; If two consecutive RED candles are printed, wait for the AC to print the red bar above the 0 line on the daily charts.

The reversal pattern is valid if two of the candles (bearish or bullish) are fully completed on daily charts as per GBPJPY screenshot below. Don’t enter the market straight after a volatile price swing to one direction. It important to consider fundamental news in the market. I would advise to avoid days like:

Move position to break even after 50 pips in profit. Move stop loss at the major local lows and highs or if the opposite signal is generated. Let your winners run. Stop loss 100 pips flat or use local technical levels to set stop losses. Every trader is advised to implement their own money management rules.

Strategy examples and screenshots.

Strategy doesn’t generate much setups, but when it does, they are usually important market tops or bottoms. See some sample trade setups before and after.

To get the ready MT4 templates for the setups below please CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD.

You can then unzip it and place them in your MT4 and have the below charts ready.

Date: 22 May 2013.

Date: 21 June 2013.

Date: 31 October 2013.

4. The swing forex day trading strategy.

Swing day trading strategy is all about vigilance!

The trader needs to be on guard to notice a correction in a trend and then be ready to catch the ‘swing’ out of the correction and back into the trend.

“And what’s a correction?” I hear you ask.

Simple. Corrections involve overlap of price bars or candles, lots and lots of overlap!

A trending price makes progress quickly, corrections don’t.

Lets look at some charts for an example.

Take the above chart, EURUSD at 240 minute candles, within the green circle we have 26 candles where the price stayed within a 100 point range.

As I have marked with the blue lines the price even contracted to a daily move of only 20 points!

A swing trader would be on HIGH ALERT here! Contracting price, lots and lots of overlap.

This presented a very high probability that the price was going to continue in the trend that had started the previous week.

The trade would involve selling when the first candle moved below the contracting range of the previous few candles, A stop could be placed at the most recent minor swing high. ( Orange Arrows )

Another example of a swing trade is shown in the chart below.

Again we are working on the EURUSD 240 minute chart.

In green we can see a correction to the downside, notice the slowing downside momentum?

Notice all the overlapping price candles?

The entry point in this trade would be a little harder to execute, although the principle is the same.

We want to wait for the price to show a sign of reversal, at the end of the correction, two separate candles moved above the upper blue line.

This showed that the price was now gearing up for reversal.

A trader would buy the open of the following candle and place a stop at the lowest point of the correction.

The risk here was about 30 points, the gain was about 600 if you managed to ride it all the way up!

Swing trading is a little more nuanced than the crossover technique, but still has plenty to offer in terms of money management and trade entry signals.

5.Candlestick patterns.

MUST READ: Candlestick patterns – 21 easy patterns ( and what they mean )

Engulfing patterns happen when the real body of a price candle covers or engulfs the real body of one or more of the preceding candles.

The more candles that the engulfing candle covers the more powerful the following move will likely be.

There are two types. Bullish and bearish.

The bullish engulfing pattern signals a bullish rise ahead and the opposite is true for the bearish engulfing candle.

In the above chart I have circled the bullish engulfing candles which led to price rises immediately after.

Well, the bullish engulfing pattern is a precursor to a large upward move.

So, when you see an the engulfing candle taking shape you should wait for the following candle and then open your position.

Your stop should be placed at the low of the engulfing candle.

The bearish engulfing pattern signals a bearish price decline ahead.

In the above chart I have circled the bearish engulfing candles which led to price declines immediately after.

Again, the more candles that the engulfing candle covers the more powerful the following move will likely be.

It is the same principle as the bullish pattern, just the flip side of the coin!

The bearish engulfing pattern is also a precursor to a large decline.

So, when you see an the engulfing candle taking shape you should wait for the following candle and then open your position.

Your stop should be placed at the high of the engulfing candle.

The ‘long shadow refers to the length of the line from the closing price on a candle to the high or low price of that particular candle.

The ‘shadow’ should be at least twice the length of the real body of the candle.

These shadows tend to occur at turning points.

And they tend to lead to large price moves!

As with the rest of the candle stick patterns, we wait for the long shadow candle to close and we place our trade at the open of the next candle.

Your stop should again be placed at the extreme high or low of the shadow candle and trailed to follow the trend.

A candle forms a ‘hammer’ when the real body of the candle sits at one end of the candle leaving a head and handle!

Again these candles tend to form at price reversals giving a strong signal for traders.

Its the same trick!

We wait for the long hammer candle to close and we place our trade at the open of the next candle.

Your stop should again be placed at the extreme high or low of the hammer candle.

and again trailed to follow the trend.

6.Support and Resistance.

Role Reversal Day Trading Strategy.

To start I needs to assume that you know what is the support and Resistance in Forex trading. If not see few simple definitions and examples below.

Support and Resistance are psychological levels which price has difficulties to break. Many reversals of trend will occur on these levels.

The harder for price to cross a certain level, the stronger it is and the profitability of our trades will increase. The most basic form of Support and Resistance is horizontal. Many traders watch those levels on every day basis and many orders are often accumulated around support or resistance areas.

It important to mention, support and resistance is NOT an exact price but rather a ZONE . Many novice traders treat the support and resistance as an exact price, which they are not. Trader must think of support and resistance as a ZONE or AREA.

These levels are probably the most important concepts in technical analysis. They are a core of most professional day trading strategies out there.

Let me introduce you to the “Role Reversal”. Let’s see how can you use it in your every day’s trading.

Role Reversal is a simple and powerful idea of support becoming a resistance (in the downtrend) and the resistance becoming a support (in the uptrend).

Let see how this plays out in the uptrend.

Once the price is making higher highs and higher lows we call it uptrend. Technical trader must assume the price is going to go up forever and only long trades should be considered. Once the uptrend is defined, the lowest strategy to trade is – buy on pullbacks.

As per definition of an uptrend, the price punching through the resistance and pullback before it makes another higher high.

“Role reversal” concept comes handy for bulls in this scenario.

Once the resistance is broken to the upside, it becomes a new support level.

Resistance changes its role to support, hence the name “Role Reversal”.

After making a new higher high, the price in uptrend must correct. It is likely to correct to the new support level. This can present an excellent buying opportunity for bulls.

We don’t know where exactly price will resume an uptrend. Risk management must be applied.

Trader must remember to treat support and resistance levels as ZONES rather than exact price.

The same principle applies to downtrends.

If the market is in downtrend, the price will punch through supports making new lower lows. The broken support becomes new resistance and offers opportunity for short positions.

Sometimes the price will pull back a bit further than just the former support or resistance. It might retrace toward other important technical levels.

I like to combine pure price action with other major, widely used leading indicators. My favourite would be: Pivot Points and Fibonacci retracements. After many years of using these tools, I can say with confidence, they are pretty accurate.

The popularity of these tools makes them so responsive.

You could also establish few levels of entries for example:

If you are looking to buy the market after the price made fresh high, you would be waiting for the price to retrace towards role reversal, Fibonacci Level or moving average. As you are pretty confident, the price is moving higher, you don’t know how far the price will pullback.

If it’s an aggressive day, the price can only come back to 20MA and shoot for new high again. Another day, the price can dip as far as 38% Fib retracement.

You can divide you position into 3 equal parts and set limit orders based on the logic above:

1/3 at 20MA, 1/3 at role reversal, 1/3 at 50% Fib retracement. This way you lower the risk and increase the odds of getting filled.

7. The Bollinger band squeeze strategy.

Bollinger bands are a measurement of the volatility of price above and below the simple moving average.

John Bollinger noted that periods of low volatility are followed by periods of high volatility, so when we notice the Bollinger bands ‘squeeze’ in towards each other, we can infer that a significant price movement may be on the cards soon.

So, the Bollinger band squeeze trading strategy aims to take advantage of price movements after periods of low volatility.

I urge you to read: Bollinger bands ( the COMPLETE how-to guide! )

The above chart is the EURUSD 240 minute chart.

The Bollinger band indicator should be set to 20 periods and 2 standard deviations and the Bollinger band width indicator should be switched on.

When trading using this strategy, we are looking for contraction in the bands along with periods when the Bollinger band width is approaching 0.0100 or about 100 points.

When all the conditions are in place, it signifies a significant price move is ahead as indicated within the green circles above.

A BUY signal is generated when a full candle completes above the simple moving average line.

A SELL signal is generated when a full candle completes below the simple moving average line.

Stops should be placed at the high or low of the preceding candle, or, to allow for a maximum loss of 3% of your trading capital, whichever is the smaller.

8. The Narrow Range Strategy.

The narrow range strategy is a very short term trading strategy. The strategy is similar to the Bollinger band strategy in that it aims to profit from a change in volatility from low to high.

It is based on identifying the candle of the narrowest range of the past 4 or 7 days.

A suitable candle would consist of a ‘ Chubby’ look with an opening and closing prices close to the days high and low as shown in the chart below.

Quite often you will find two or more narrow candles together this only serves to contract the volatility and will often lead to an even larger breakout of the range to come.

Once a narrow candle is identified we can be reasonably sure that a volatility spike will be close at hand.

Your stop is placed at the low or high of the Narrow candle and trailed to suit.

9. The 2 period RSI strategy.

This strategy is pretty simple really.

In general this is a very aggressive short term strategy as you can see by the amount of signals that are generated in the chart shown.

As such this aggressiveness will be caught out by a ranging market and may lead to several losing trades in a row.

The aggressive nature of the strategy should be matched with an equally rigorous stop loss regime.

The merits of the system shine when the market begins to trend in a particular direction. In this case Extra BUY or SELL triggers can be used to add to positions.

Those positions should be closed when an opposing signal is generated.

As in the chart above, when the RSI moved above 90 the first BUY signal was generated and the first position was opened, the RSI then triggered another BUY signal and another similar position was opened.

Both trades were then closed when the RSI moved back below 10.

In the End!

Day trading, and trading in general is not a past-time! Trading is not something that you dip your toes into now and again.

Day trading is hard work, time consuming and frustrating at the best of times! It is no wonder that over 93% of people that try it, lose money and give up!

“the excuse doesn’t matter; the cold hard number is that only about 4.5% of traders who start day trading will end up being able to make something of it.”

BUT, by recognizing the difficulty and learning some basic trading strategies you can avoid the pitfalls that most new traders fall into!

The honest truth of the matter is this, most new traders get involved because they see huge profits straight ahead by simply clicking BUY .

Believing they will wake up the next morning a newly minted millionaire! What actually happens goes more like this.

Your friend has just opened a trading account, he claims to have made a hundred dollars in ten minutes, he just sold the EURUSD because the U. S economy is so great right now, it said so on TV!

So you go home, lodge a $1000 into a trading account, SELL the EURUSD at $5/ point.

You wake up the next day and the market has moved against you by 200 points, and your account is wiped out!

Lets look at the facts. There are three main reasons behind the high failure rate of new traders, and you can avoid them easily!

As in the story I told above, trading based on hearsay or some popular narrative will lead you to almost certain doom!

The value of using a tried and tested trading technique is immense, and will save you from loosing your hard earned savings.

By using a day trading strategy, you remove the emotional element from the trading decision.

A trading strategy requires a number of elements to be in place before trading.

So, when those elements are in place, you place the trade.

It is a binary decision rather than an emotional decision. All other actions are off the table, by following a trading technique you avoid the cardinal sin of trading, that is, over trading.

So often new traders place a trade without even placing a stop loss position! An error which can lead to catastrophic losses.

Money management can be as simple as using the 3 / 1000 rule.

That is: never ever ever ever risk more than 3% of your capital on any trade.

And never risk more than 1000 th (or as close to) of your capital per point.

Now, I’ve given you the tools, so get to it, and start trading profitably!

Please let me know, which intraday trading strategy is your favourite in the comment section below. I will expand of the most popular ones.

Author: Roman Sadowski.

I truly believe the journey to profitability and freedom is a function of hard work, commitment, persistence and boring routines.

There is no magic to trading. I believe in making calm rational decisions what, when and how to trade based on a decade of intense learning.

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Very good and valuable information thanks for sharing.

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Strategies include step-by-step instructions for Momentum and Role Reversal, Heikin-Ashi, RSI and Moving Average Crossover, Candlesticks and more.

A Beginner's Guide to Hedging.

Although it sounds like something that is being practiced by your gardening-obsessed neighbor, hedging is a practice every investor should know about. There is no arguing that portfolio protection is often just as important as portfolio appreciation. Like your neighbor's obsession, however, hedging is talked about more than it is explained, making it seem as though it belongs only to the most esoteric financial realms. Well, even if you are a beginner, you can learn what hedging is, how it works and what techniques investors and companies use to protect themselves.

What Is Hedging?

The best way to understand hedging is to think of it as insurance. When people decide to hedge, they are insuring themselves against a negative event. This doesn't prevent a negative event from happening, but if it does happen and you're properly hedged, the impact of the event is reduced. So, hedging occurs almost everywhere, and we see it everyday. For example, if you buy house insurance, you are hedging yourself against fires, break-ins or other unforeseen disasters.

Portfolio managers, individual investors and corporations use hedging techniques to reduce their exposure to various risks. In financial markets, however, hedging becomes more complicated than simply paying an insurance company a fee every year. Hedging against investment risk means strategically using instruments in the market to offset the risk of any adverse price movements. In other words, investors hedge one investment by making another.

Technically, to hedge you would invest in two securities with negative correlations. Of course, nothing in this world is free, so you still have to pay for this type of insurance in one form or another.

Although some of us may fantasize about a world where profit potentials are limitless but also risk free, hedging can't help us escape the hard reality of the risk-return tradeoff. A reduction in risk will always mean a reduction in potential profits. So, hedging, for the most part, is a technique not by which you will make money but by which you can reduce potential loss. If the investment you are hedging against makes money, you will have typically reduced the profit that you could have made, and if the investment loses money, your hedge, if successful, will reduce that loss.

How Do Investors Hedge?

Hedging techniques generally involve the use of complicated financial instruments known as derivatives, the two most common of which are options and futures. We're not going to get into the nitty-gritty of describing how these instruments work, but for now just keep in mind that with these instruments you can develop trading strategies where a loss in one investment is offset by a gain in a derivative.

[ T echnical traders will often hedge their positions with options to limit risk or enhance returns. If you want to learn more about technical analysis and how to identify profitable trading opportunities, Investopedia Academy's technical analysis course is an excellent start. ]

Let's see how this works with an example. Say you own shares of Cory's Tequila Corporation (Ticker: CTC). Although you believe in this company for the long run, you are a little worried about some short-term losses in the tequila industry. To protect yourself from a fall in CTC you can buy a put option (a derivative) on the company, which gives you the right to sell CTC at a specific price (strike price). This strategy is known as a married put. If your stock price tumbles below the strike price, these losses will be offset by gains in the put option. (For more information, see this article on married puts or this options basics tutorial.)

The other classic hedging example involves a company that depends on a certain commodity. Let's say Cory's Tequila Corporation is worried about the volatility in the price of agave, the plant used to make tequila. The company would be in deep trouble if the price of agave were to skyrocket, which would severely eat into profit margins. To protect (hedge) against the uncertainty of agave prices, CTC can enter into a futures contract (or its less regulated cousin, the forward contract), which allows the company to buy the agave at a specific price at a set date in the future. Now CTC can budget without worrying about the fluctuating commodity.

If the agave skyrockets above that price specified by the futures contract, the hedge will have paid off because CTC will save money by paying the lower price. However, if the price goes down, CTC is still obligated to pay the price in the contract and actually would have been better off not hedging.

Keep in mind that because there are so many different types of options and futures contracts an investor can hedge against nearly anything, whether a stock, commodity price, interest rate and currency – investors can even hedge against the weather.

The Downside.

Every hedge has a cost, so before you decide to use hedging, you must ask yourself if the benefits received from it justify the expense. Remember, the goal of hedging isn't to make money but to protect from losses. The cost of the hedge – whether it is the cost of an option or lost profits from being on the wrong side of a futures contract – cannot be avoided. This is the price you have to pay to avoid uncertainty.

We've been comparing hedging versus insurance, but we should emphasize that insurance is far more precise than hedging. With insurance, you are completely compensated for your loss (usually minus a deductible). Hedging a portfolio isn't a perfect science and things can go wrong. Although risk managers are always aiming for the perfect hedge, it is difficult to achieve in practice.

What Hedging Means to You.

The majority of investors will never trade a derivative contract in their life. In fact most buy-and-hold investors ignore short-term fluctuation altogether. For these investors there is little point in engaging in hedging because they let their investments grow with the overall market. So why learn about hedging?

Even if you never hedge for your own portfolio you should understand how it works because many big companies and investment funds will hedge in some form. Oil companies, for example, might hedge against the price of oil while an international mutual fund might hedge against fluctuations in foreign exchange rates. An understanding of hedging will help you to comprehend and analyze these investments.

The Bottom Line.

Risk is an essential yet precarious element of investing. Regardless of what kind of investor one aims to be, having a basic knowledge of hedging strategies will lead to better awareness of how investors and companies work to protect themselves. Whether or not you decide to start practicing the intricate uses of derivatives, learning about how hedging works will help advance your understanding of the market, which will always help you be a better investor.

Day Trading 101: Strategic Hedging.

Having the discipline to cut losers fast and let winners ride is a lesson learned in day trading 101 . Yet even though the lesson is simple, it can be surprisingly difficult to employ when actually in a trade. Sticking to your trading discipline is particularly important when day trading because the market often moves irrationally on a day-to-day basis. Regardless of how calculated your decision to buy or short a stock for the day might be, the market may completely ignore your reasons and move in the opposite direction. Even if the stock does rebound days, weeks, or months later, you may have cut your losses before this happens.

Different Methods of Day Trading.

There are a few different ways to keep losses small and put the odds in your favor. Three prominent notions to keep in mind when day-trading are these: keep your risk-reward balance in check, have confidence in the levels you trade at and use hedging strategies to protect profits.

Risk-to-Reward vs Cost Averaging Methods.

Keeping the risk-to-reward ratio in check means that you will always make more on your “winners” than you will lose on your “losers.” With a three-to-one risk-to-reward ratio, you will allow a trade to go against you by only ten cents before cutting your loss, but are looking to make at least forty cents on your good trades. This way, if you are right only half of the time, you are still making money. Having confidence in the level that you pick to trade should be standard with every trade. However, if you choose to day trade using a cost-averaging strategy, it is absolutely critical. This method requires scale (either having a large bankroll or trading in small enough share amounts to create scale). Say you long a stock at a certain price after doing effective and thorough research and are extremely confident in the longer-term direction of the stock. Since day-to-day price movements may be unexpected, you can choose to lower your cost when the price goes down. This will increase the amount of shares you own while lowering the cost basis of the position at the same time. With enough capital, you can work your cost average to such a good price that when the stock does kick up, you can either exit the trade at a small gain or let the stock move up and reap well-timed rewards.

Hedging Your Trades.

Another way to manage risk would be to long or short a stock and to simultaneously purchase an index that moves in the opposite direction. In order for this strategy to work, the purchased stock has to be more volatile (in terms of its beta) than the index you are hedging with. For example, let’s say you have shorted shares of Company X, which has a beta of 1.4. By purchasing the S&P index depository receipts (SPY), which have a beta of 1, you will still profit if the market, and Company X, go down proportionally because Company X will decrease more than the market. Yet if the market unexpectedly rebounds, your investment is mostly covered.

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