I've been trying to cut down on hedging as it just seems to be cost inefficient...
Yeah, good post. Been thinking about that and any post that gets me thinking is a good one. Also convexx's thread, especially the assym. formations. And yes, often a simple spread will do. Good points, RR.
Often, hedging seems win/win, but it really gets in the way sometimes. I mean, you can go along hedging for awhile and it all works and it all seems brilliant, then you hedge too often and pay as I did Friday. It can kinda handcuff you.
Another trade, an early CL short trade for me, I was using some ridiculously long time frame and the trade went hard against me. I was in early and in a long time frame with CL that gets ugly. The main trade was down like 6K, but I was selling puts along the way and reduced that by about 2K. Trouble was, CL finally turned, dropped a little, then dropped like a rock and I had kept selling puts, it worked so well before, duh.
On the way down, the short puts cost me way more than I made on the way up. Good trade, decent profit, turned into a rather poor trade, small profit. +about 500 instead of 2-3K. What's worse is that those kinds of trades just fry your brain. I was too eager to get out. Had I waited a day or two could have been a much better profit.