about hedging; if you bought 1000 COST at 460 - what amount of puts/strike should you buy to "hedge"

[murray t turtle]

If your talking about hedging a stock, you need (1000 /100=10 deltas).You need as many options to get you to a 10.0 deltas.

That is a perfect delta hedge at time of inception. Or, you can buy 1 put per 100 shares of stock at an arbitrary strike. modeling will show you break evens. Adjust strike level to your taste.

If your just figuring this out and in a rush, then it is best to just close or dial down the size. I am seeing a large amount of people playing with options with zero theory/concepts behind it. Simply seeing strike levels as a price barrier to avoid or penetrate. It won't end well.

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THAT's a good rule of thumb\ because easy lose on both sides.
But HD can be + has been a super stock, like MSFT\only may draw down 50% in a bear market like 2008.
Its listed as one of the stocks in Making Money Selling Stocks Short,[William o Neil] but tended to hold up@50% drop level, better than average.