What is a Rio Hedge

The Rio hedge is a tongue-in-cheek term used by traders who face liquidity issues or capital restraints, but still put on a risky trade. If the trade goes badly, the trader will execute the Rio hedge, that is, a plane ticket to a tropical location such as Rio de Janiero, to escape financial respons

Essentially, the Rio hedge is a form of gall

BREAKING DOWN Rio Hedge

The Rio hedge is often associated with trades with more risk relative to the potential return, such as large naked short

Generally, most professional traders infrequently trade positions that might result in the need for a Rio hedge, instead choosing to more carefully manage risk with a series of less-risky, disciplined trades

The Rio hedge, while mildly funny, highlights problems many traders face, especially beginners who are new to trading. This includes potential margin calls and personal credit risks should things start to go quite badly. While trading can be lucrative, it’s not uncommon for individual traders with little experience to see large account

Trading is not for everyone. For those who do intend to trade individual stocks, commodities or futures, paper trades and starting with a small amount of capital can help avoid the Rio hedge, as will a lot of practice and

Perhaps the most rigorous place to learn trading is the CMT Association, which issues the Chartered Market Technician examination. This test requires hundreds of hours of study, and thoroughly covers topics such as risk management, behavioral finance and trading-system

For those who won’t commit to the CMT, consider reading “The Essentials of Trading”, by John Forman, Ph.D. Also, consider the pros and cons of various online trading acad

Have a Trading Strategy to Avoid the Rio Hedge

A proper trading strategy involves first defining the types of securities to be traded, the associated patterns, the typical time frame for each trade, position limits and strict rules governing entry and exit points. Discipli

Note that many experienced traders expect to be “right” roughly half the time with their trades. The way many of them turn a profit over time is by dealing only with liquid positions, carefully controlling costs, and by evaluating technical risk-reward in a way that “lets the winn

One way to let winners ride, for example, is by utilizing areas of technical resistance and support. When putting on a long position, an experienced trader typically places a stop order slightly below the area of support, then looks for a trade with significant room to run before the next area of technical r

For some traders, a long trade may have a technical risk/reward ratio of roughly 3-to-1. What this means is there’s three times as much room for the the long position to move upward to resistance as there is for the stock to move down to