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.
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.