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dealing with event driven market volatility
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if you are worried about elections think about writing some calls against your long positions to help hedge.   if you have msft (@ $51.38 right now) you could write a msft call for lets say $55. you can bank $170 per 100 shares (let's say you write it at 1.70) (msft 01/20/2017 55.00 c 1.73 +0.01 bid: 1.69 ask: 1.77) if msft goes down a lot you will have lost $170 less per 100 shares than you would have because you wrote an option for $170.  you will in fact be break even if the stock falls to 49.68 on the jan strike date. if msft goes up $3.50 you will have made $170 and still have your msft stock for a net gain of $520.  $170 in cash for the premium and your stock is now worth $350 more. if msft goes up $3.62 or more you will have made the max $530ish and have no msft left potentially losing additional profit if the stock goes up like gang busters.   so is it worth it for you to get $170 in cash now and risk the stock going up more than $5 between now and jan.  that is the decision to make here.
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