# Simple strategies for tail risk hedging that retail investors can use

Universa Investments run by Mark Spitznagel popularized the idea of portfolio insurance (also known as tail hedge) protecting the investor against severe market declines (tail risks). By using this tail hedge, the investor can increase their share in riskier assets (stocks) while bringing the total risk of the portfolio down.

In my understanding, a retail investor can implement a tail-hedging strategy by purchasing deep OTM SPY puts. How exactly is this achieved? How to estimate the number of puts and how to rotate them? How much of capital should be allocated to this tail-hedging strategy? Or maybe it is easier to purchase a ready-to-use solution (e.g., ETF)?

• I DO NOT endorse such products, especially not now, but here is an interesting link about one tail risk ETF etf.com/sections/features-and-news/… – noob2 Jun 1 at 17:14
• @noob2 thanks for your input. I understand that one should not follow the herd and jump into a product like this after a major crash – slava-kohut Jun 1 at 20:38

• literally from the SEC page: Convexity in the Fund’s name is a reference to the mathematical term convexity. The Fund’s returns are intended to possess convexity because the relationship between the Fund’s returns and market returns is not designed to be linear. That is, if market returns go up and down in a linear fashion, the Fund’s returns are expected to rise faster than the market in positive markets; while declining less than the market in negative markets.  – AK88 Jun 1 at 20:55