It´s called "dynamic hedging" for A reason....! And yes, I made a killing during the GFC with that approach.... Our good, old friend Nassim Taleb has a thing or two to contribute: http://docs.finance.free.fr/Options/Dynamic_Hedging-Taleb.pdf
I assume you are long gamma for a very good reason.. If and when I am long gamma,I choose to do so because I think vol is cheap,and i believe the realized vol captured/traded will exceed the vol(implied) I purchased. Or once in a blue moon,I think there will be a large move and I take a punt on a straddle and wont adjust until I get a large move upwards of 2 standards.. If you are long gamma to trade it,the question is how do you set your thresholds where you will buy/sell to flatten your delta?? How large will you let your delta get relative to your gamma? There really is no right answer as one person may buy cheap vol and try to trade the chop/whips,while another may have the exact same position but let his deltas go and feel the market may be trending... My rule is if I am long gamma because vol is cheap,I flatten my deltas based of of a vol that I think/pray the market should trades at.. Example; 100 dollar stock,vol trading at 10.I believe realized vol >= 15 vol. I wont make consider making an adjustment until (stock price x vol) x sq root of (days/252) So if i hedge on a daily basis, (100 x .15) x sq root of 1/252 if i dont get my hedge off on day 1,my "time factor" increases to 2/252 for the second day.. And for the record,I can only take about 5-7 days of being dead wrong
I'm just surmising, but selling an -0.80 put paired with a +0.65 call could be said to be a "15-delta strangle." It's not really my style, and I have not worked the rest out in my head, but a lot of responses could perhaps use this idea.
When I would delta hedge positions as a market maker, I would simulate many different delta hedging strategies on tick data. For example, flattening deltas after a move of .5, 1 and 2 standard deviations in the stock. I would chose the hedging strategy that maximized profits. I found there was some predictiveness to the exercise. IBM back then would tend to move in one direction for a while, so you didn't want to over hedge that one. But some volatile Nasdaq stocks did well with a tighter hedging band. It is also important to understand true deltas. For example, some very low priced and OTM options may give deltas to your position that you would otherwise not hedge if that were your only position. I developed a rule to identify those types of options, but that is a longer story. If anyone wants to hear about that, let me know.
I'm actually completely baffled right now. My current position has: Negative theta Neutral Vega Positive Gamma And yet I'm STILL losing money.