I've never been good with darned if you do, darned if you don't situations like the hog market has now. That failure to make the correct choice with these situations is what actually started me tinkering with my fishing line strategy. I got sick and tired of making the wrong choices 80% of the time. I have been gifted with the luck of turning a lemon into lemon-aid. Not that I am gifted mentally to figure things out, I rub shoulders with associates that have IQ's that make my mental capacity look like a fly spec on the wall. My God given gift is persistence in not accepting failure and to keep tweaking until I get it right. My passion is the process and I do love looking at all sides of the picture, front, and back in search for the subtle clues that consistently show up but few notice because they only see what is staring them in the face at the moment.

I've never been a crowd follower so that's probably why I have difficulty trading a trend. I'm an addicted contrarian that thrives on chaos.

Today April hogs are battling over which side of 64.40 it prefers and the north end has won the battle for today making it an early clue that yesterdays low at 63.67 could prove to be the bottom for April hogs but I can expect a retest of that low to happen. Todays high at 65.30 gives me my mark 65.35 to throw my fishing line buy stops out there tomorrow morning and wait for a bite. If I hook a pair my risk stops go in at 64.60-64.75 area. If it turns out to be a sucker fish 65.70 probably stops it on the first hit. If a second hit on 65.70 breaks through it has a chance to run to the 66.10-66.20 target area. This needs to happen to create some anxiety panic from the shorts to bring on a test of my desired target at 66.80.

Not knowing what or how fast the market will trade my usual approach when I hook something is to immediately set my damage control stops, then I will take profits on 1 at the first resistance which is usually only about 25-30 cents above my entry. This is why I like to trade pairs, not knowing what happens next and not being a lucky guesser, I have to assume I'm wrong and be thrilled and surprised if proven correct. 75-80% of the time a qualifying setup will give me 30 cents profit before it pulls back to threaten my damage control. If it then takes me out of the trade proving me wrong I only loss 30 cents holding 1 contract rather than losing $1.20 holding 2 contracts. Losing 30 cents is not an issue to play the game that has a reliable 80% odds for deposits. I do get irritated at losing 1.20. Usually 60 minutes of trade will give me a good idea if I can play the fish, add 1 back on, or cut em loose. If it quickly goes to the 2nd target which happens 75% of the time after first target is hit I deposit 30 cents on target 1 and 70 cents on target 2. Many people laugh at only $400 profit my % risk for losses has become very minimal as I continue to tweak my rules of engagement. It used to be a battle to gain back my losses from being wrong.

I have a lot of rules of engagement that dictate what choices I make as the day unfolds. A good tendency is that if I make it through the first 60 min without being blown out I will probably manage to reel in a $1.00-1.50 or more deposit for the day. The downside is that I have had to wait 2 weeks for a qualifying setup or recognize I've missed setups. Fishing works for me because I'm convicted to the discipline of low risk/smaller profit over time keeps the bank account growing. The hard part is the discipline to follow the rules of engagement that apply to fishing and stay focused.