I see things about if a position is losing, you buy something else such that deltas are even. Like if your delta is -400, you go over one strike and sell enough that the delta of your position is around 400. What does that do? I simulated this in Think or Swim but don't really get it, it looked like a trade long.
Just my opinion but delta hedging is usually something left up to those who carry a large portfolio of various option trades. Whether it be market making or just a vast portfolio of various small positions you can offset your deltas by either either selling / buying futures against your overall portfolio or hedging in the individual stock. There are some good option books out there that cover the topic well. Those who trade mostly straddles either long or short can hedge delta through gamma and reverse gamma scalping but there's always the toss up of do you hedge tight or wide. Hedging once neutralizes your deltas but as you approach expiration and the greeks change you'll have to hedge again in a dynamic way. Whether you will need to delta hedge or not depends upon the strategy and size you are trading with options.
You mention TOS here is their write-up. https://tastytradenetwork.squarespace.com/tt/blog/tasty-bite-trading-delta-neutral
Delta hedging (as per the title of the thread) aims to remove directionality from a trade by offsetting the delta of one position (say the -400 in your example above) with another position (i.e. you would need a +400 delta in your 'hedge'). Your combined portfolio delta should be as close to zero as possible. Rather than directionality, your total portfolio will now be more impacted by other 'Greeks' (time, vol, rates, ...). It is important to realize that delta hedging is not static, read up on Gamma (and other greeks) if you need more info.
How about delta hedging butterflies? I am paper trading a few (appl, nio, fcell) with a synthetic short straddle at the pin, on single names. I might be making a mishmash here, but it is what I think I have understood from some of the experienced trader's posts here on ET.
I think it is something you can do. At expiration if you're outside the wings the delta goes to zero so if the fly blows out to either side your hedge should offset losses but your delta would also be constantly changing as expiration approaches so you would have to keep hedging in a way that is similar to gamma or reverse gamma scalping for those that trade long or short straddles. Theoretically if you are say just long a lot of straddles you would sell stock as the price goes up and buy stock when the price goes down trying to offset the theta loss in the position. At the moment i'm trading pretty small with a variety of one lot flies and looking to add much more capital by May. Mine are usually directional so usually on the call side have a positive delta to start with so if sold stock and the price fell towards or below my first wing this profit if the stock declined on the hedge could pay or pay for a chunk of the cost of the fly. Perhaps the strategy is better for a true directionless fly to hedge as the delta changes. Probably some more experienced fly traders who could weigh in.
I understand they better not be traded to expiration, I am aiming at 10%-20% approx from IV and theta decay as I think the delta would get more complicated to manage closer to expiry. I've always looked at delta hedge from a long straddle point of view. In which case every adjustment or gamma scalp would be recovering part of the intial cost, whilst hedging a short straddle would come at a cost/loss that comes off the credit. I guess that sometime, those position might need very little or no hedge, as they are kind of neutral initially. On the other hand, if price jumps away, a loss is the probable outcome.