Morning maxinger,Newbie traders will ask this question
Professional traders wouldn't.
Because we don't have a powerful and reliable crystal ball.
When there is a signal to short, we will short with say 10 lots of index futures.
first 5 lots, we target Reward : risk ratio of say 3:1.
Next 5 lots, they hold on for a long period because we don't know how far the market will go down.