You bet on a company in a specific market and hope it goes up. Then you diversify another investment into this specific market, but in multiple companies. But you short them a little. First case, company go up, wins go up. Second case, major desaster tanks the whole market you equalize the dumping single company investment with the short in the market. Lost nearly nothing.

Hedging is about recognizing investment risk and mitigating it. That being said, hedging is not really a working strategy, it just has lots of media coverage. Hedge funds leverage a good story to convince investors to give them money to manage. They earn from managing that money without carrying three y risks. The broker always earns.

If you want you invest money with limited risk, broad market index funds area the way to go.