Rise-T

Hi all, Sorry for replying sort of late, but I have been pretty busy the last couple of days. And many thanks to all for taking the time to post! 1.) I guess the concept of Net & Gross exposure is what I was looking for. I now realize I was somehow trying to get those two stats into one figure - which I guess is next to impossible :crap: So realizing this was of great help for me. Also, I am a great fan of clear & systematic wording (not sure where I got that from...) - so this perfectly fits the bill. Thank you. 2.) Regarding being long & short in highly correlated instruments: Firstly, my intention was to create my risk management spreadsheet as versatile as possible. Secondly, when there are single stocks I've been watching breaking out in a constructive manner and (I want to own them in a continued market uptrend) while the general market seems stills suspect to me, what I sometimes do is initiating corresponding shorts with weak action at low risk points (i.e. rallies) to somewhat hedge the longs. When the general market finally decides its way, I slowly fade out of the shorts (or the longs) in order to get net long or short. Sure, sometimes I get faked out on both sides, but other times it works. 3.) Portfolio Heat etc. I guess I've spend the better part of 5 years or so studying Van's material (after a huge gain followed by a big loss - gold stocks in 2002... In fact, that is what got me into trading vs investing in the first place - controlling risk) and I am familiar with pretty much every concept he's written about. I was also reading avidly (and sometimes participating in) his old MasterMind forums (which sadly don't exist anymore, I suspect partly because of his recent strange affinity to Service Marks... ). On a sidenote, if you haven't read it yet, I would recommend his Definitive Guide to Position Sizing since it summarizes almost all position sizing concepts pretty well. It is a bit on the expensive side since he published it himself, but I definitely would have bought it (I don't have any affliliation with Van's company as well - besides being a client - but I kindly got the book for free, though, since I've been helping him in a - really very tiny - way with the book). The measuring of exposure is just one out of many stats I've integrated into my risk management - I've tried to integrate as many as possible (at least the ones that make sense to me & you don't have to have a PHD in rocket science to calculate - as my math skills are rather questionable & I don't think it's really necessary - e. g. the material of Ralph Vince). Some stats that I use to measure risk: Open Initial Risk, Open Risk, Exposure (all of them for individual positions, for correlated groups and on a porfolio level (e. g. Open Position Risk, Open Group Risk, Open Porfolio Risk (= Portfolio Heat - see my preference for systematic wording above... ). All of them just for longs and just for shorts. All net & gross long/short. Adjusting position size for volatility. R-Multiples. Market's Money concept. Keeping positions & groups & the portfolio within defined max risk limits by peeling off units when necessary. Regarding Curtis, I've followed his writings early on when he was still participating at his former forum at tradingblox.com. I bought his first book when it came out - and I agree, it is an excellent one. I try to incorporate that mentioned Turtle rule by measuring the risk of longs vs shorts. Again, thank you all for your kind comments!

Hi everyone, I used to consider myself something like a 'living position sizing encylopdia' over the years, but enhancing my position sizing / real-time risk management spreadsheet to handle longs & shorts (used to be longs only), I've noticed that I am not 100% sure about the answer to the following rather simple question: To make things easier, let's just talk about stocks, so there's a pretty high correlation between positions. If I have a 100,000 USD portfolio and I have long positions worth 100,000 USD and short positions worth 100,000 USD. Do I consider myself 0% invested then or 200%...? I mean, 0% doesn't really make sense, but so doesn't 200%. Any informed thoughts? Thank you in advance!