Hello Tim, I don't trade options as I know nothing about them! On shorting it will probably be sometime before that will be safe! DH can help us on the time hopefully!

Tim, if I can copy it off I am going to send you some of the info I received from one of the brokers at ADM

It was another wild ride in the hog market as we had a 4.00 range. The last two weeks we saw a negative response to China’s absence in the export sales but today we only saw a weaker opening minute. The export sales came in @ 10,800MT which was down 66% from the four week average but the export shipments were up 2% and China was shown to take 4,300MT which they pay the high tariff on. After seeing a 50% correction from the tremendous rally, the hog futures have embarked on a huge rally back towards the highs this week. The June contract settled up the limit so we will see expanded limits during tomorrow’s session. The settlement price was also a tick over the contract high in the June with all other months just off their contract highs put out 2 weeks ago. Our upside target of $120 has been advertised since last fall but we now in range of our first upside target of 100.50 in the June. If we see a 2.00 move tomorrow we will look to take some profits out of our June positions as we are afraid the June might not be enough time to see the rally come to fruition. We also think producers need to establish price floors as the prices shown now for the fall timeframe are extremely high seasonally and if ASF shows up in the US it would be a major blow to our export market. Buying some puts in the August through December timeframe puts a price floor on your hogs and leaves the upside open so if the futures continue to rally, you are just out your original investment. December 2018 hogs finished at 55 and December 2017 hogs finished at 64. We are currently at 81.00 in the Dec futures so taking advantage of this by purchasing put options is the best way to approach the market in case the rally stalls out and China leaves the tariffs on.

Dewey