Assume that you know with a high degree of confidence that Russia will invade Ukraine in February 2022.
Also assume that you have an investment portfolio invested 100% in VTI (Vanguard Total Stock Market Index).
You think that if Russia invades Ukraine, this will affect your portfolio in a negative way.
Aside from doing a direct hedge (Buying buts on VTI), in what other ways would you attempt to hedge your portfolio?
I found the perfect hedge:
I bet $5,000 to win $33,500 that the following Metaculus question resolves YES https://metaculus.com/questions/8898/russian-invasion-of-ukraine-before-2023/…
Bet is voided if resolution is ambiguous.
A few ways to hedge that were floating in my head:
Long natural gas futures
Long Brent oil futures
Buy VIX calls
Buy DXY calls
Buy VGK puts
You think that if Russia invades Ukraine, this will affect your portfolio in a negative way.
But why would you think this?
Find someone on LessWrong or elsewhere who thinks otherwise, find a trusted third-party, and directly place a bet.
If you can't find a third-party but are open to using cryptocurrency, you can write to Polymarket or deploy on UMA.
Knowing ONLY what you've just said, the direct hedge seems pretty smart. If you know other things (like more precision about the invasion, or specific components of VTI that will rise or fall), you can certainly make better trades.
But if that were the case, you'd probably already be trading in those components rather than VTI in the first place - money you have in giant indexes is because you're not claiming to know more than "the market" on any specific topic.
https://twitter.com/RALee85/status/1476642007426777092
is a reasonable summary of what Russian military leaders might be thinking. I'd say invasion with long-term troops is still unlikely, but some form of hot conflict seems to be brewing.