Mitigating High Risk Long Positions with Covering
Stop losses are an, often unwelcome, but ultimately necessary and life saving tactic to day trading. When going long, setting a high stop loss can be beneficial for getting out of bad trades quickly with small losses, and opening yourself up up more opportunities for good trades. Setting a low stop loss on the other hand, can be beneficial by greatly increasing your profit. Many trades that seem bad initially end up rallying and turning profitable. Generally speaking, the lower your stop loss, the higher your percentage of good trades. The downside to a low stop loss of course is that trades take longer, locking your funds up, and what if price actually hits your super low stop loss? You've lost a super amount of money.
In my trading career so far, I've preferred a low stop loss. Losing out on a good trade due to a conservative stop loss is more painful to me than the risk presented by a liberal one. But this is a high risk to accept. Losing, say, 20% of my trading capital is definitely something I want to avoid, but not at the cost of a high stop loss.
So, I can hedge my position, mitigate my risk, in one of a few ways. I can open a short position when I see my long position go south. Or I can engage in Dollar Cost Averaging: I buy more as the price falls to lower my average position size and ultimately my target profit. These are good options, but come with their own side effects. Opening a short position opens you up to risks associated with a short position, i.e. price suddenly shoots up. And Dollar Cost Averaging requires additional funds to keep buying. What else can I do?
Enter "Covering". From Investopedia: "To cover is to take a defensive action to lower the risk exposure of a position"
The graph attached here is a demonstration of Covering (the exact spots for buying/selling were picked hastily; this example is purely conceptual and an ideal situation). The basic idea is: when price begins to fall, sell it, just like a stop loss. However, unlike a stop loss, the intention is to buy back in at a lower price when price begins to rise again.
This is like dollar cost averaging, because you're, in a sense, lowering your average position size. The difference is you don't need additional funds. This is also like short selling, because you rely on the price continuing to fall, but you haven't borrowed anything in order to benefit from this fall.
As you can see in the diagram, as you sell and buy back, the amount of shares/coins/whatever you can afford off your initial capital increases, thus either increasing your profit if the trade hits the profit target, or decreasing your losses if the trade hits your actual stop loss.
Here's how Ive been setting up my covers:
When price begins to fall, I set a conditional market sell somewhere below the nearest support. If price falls to this level, I immediately sell everything
Once I've sold all my shares, I set a trailing stop loss for the cover; I generally do ~1.2%. If, after I sell, price rises 1.2%, I buy back as many shares as I can with the money I got from selling earlier. Ideally, this trailing stop falls well below where I sold.
Rinse and repeat until price either hits your original take profit or your original stop loss.
Some things to note. Do not buy below your original stop loss! The purpose of this strategy is to respect your original decision, not make new ones. This is meant to mitigate a high risk situation, don't expose yourself to more risk in doing so. Also, you theoretically want to buy back above your original stop loss, even if it looks like it's going to fall through. Make your own call here, but by not buying back, you've essentially just changed where your original stop loss is, and thus changed your original trade decision.
Of course, nothing is without its own risks. It's quite possible that you get stopped out for a loss every time you sell, i.e. you sold, price went up, so you buy back at a higher price to stay in the trade. This will eat into your profit if the profit target is eventually hit, or simply add to your losses if the stop loss is hit.
From my point of view, that risk is less painful than the risk of hitting a low stop loss without covering. You theoretically give yourself more chances of being right with these micro trades inside of your larger trade, and if you get lucky, as is the case in my diagram, you might actually profit even if your original stop loss is hit.
This strategy requires attention, for sure, but if you're both strategic and lucky, you can really save yourself from the downsides of a high risk trade without adding money to the pool, or exposing yourself to short selling risk.
In my trading career so far, I've preferred a low stop loss. Losing out on a good trade due to a conservative stop loss is more painful to me than the risk presented by a liberal one. But this is a high risk to accept. Losing, say, 20% of my trading capital is definitely something I want to avoid, but not at the cost of a high stop loss.
So, I can hedge my position, mitigate my risk, in one of a few ways. I can open a short position when I see my long position go south. Or I can engage in Dollar Cost Averaging: I buy more as the price falls to lower my average position size and ultimately my target profit. These are good options, but come with their own side effects. Opening a short position opens you up to risks associated with a short position, i.e. price suddenly shoots up. And Dollar Cost Averaging requires additional funds to keep buying. What else can I do?
Enter "Covering". From Investopedia: "To cover is to take a defensive action to lower the risk exposure of a position"
The graph attached here is a demonstration of Covering (the exact spots for buying/selling were picked hastily; this example is purely conceptual and an ideal situation). The basic idea is: when price begins to fall, sell it, just like a stop loss. However, unlike a stop loss, the intention is to buy back in at a lower price when price begins to rise again.
This is like dollar cost averaging, because you're, in a sense, lowering your average position size. The difference is you don't need additional funds. This is also like short selling, because you rely on the price continuing to fall, but you haven't borrowed anything in order to benefit from this fall.
As you can see in the diagram, as you sell and buy back, the amount of shares/coins/whatever you can afford off your initial capital increases, thus either increasing your profit if the trade hits the profit target, or decreasing your losses if the trade hits your actual stop loss.
Here's how Ive been setting up my covers:
When price begins to fall, I set a conditional market sell somewhere below the nearest support. If price falls to this level, I immediately sell everything
Once I've sold all my shares, I set a trailing stop loss for the cover; I generally do ~1.2%. If, after I sell, price rises 1.2%, I buy back as many shares as I can with the money I got from selling earlier. Ideally, this trailing stop falls well below where I sold.
Rinse and repeat until price either hits your original take profit or your original stop loss.
Some things to note. Do not buy below your original stop loss! The purpose of this strategy is to respect your original decision, not make new ones. This is meant to mitigate a high risk situation, don't expose yourself to more risk in doing so. Also, you theoretically want to buy back above your original stop loss, even if it looks like it's going to fall through. Make your own call here, but by not buying back, you've essentially just changed where your original stop loss is, and thus changed your original trade decision.
Of course, nothing is without its own risks. It's quite possible that you get stopped out for a loss every time you sell, i.e. you sold, price went up, so you buy back at a higher price to stay in the trade. This will eat into your profit if the profit target is eventually hit, or simply add to your losses if the stop loss is hit.
From my point of view, that risk is less painful than the risk of hitting a low stop loss without covering. You theoretically give yourself more chances of being right with these micro trades inside of your larger trade, and if you get lucky, as is the case in my diagram, you might actually profit even if your original stop loss is hit.
This strategy requires attention, for sure, but if you're both strategic and lucky, you can really save yourself from the downsides of a high risk trade without adding money to the pool, or exposing yourself to short selling risk.
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