When Commodity Trades Go Wrong. My most recent has. I hoped that OJ would plummet, and had what I thought were good reasons for my belief. Until last Thursday, it looked like I might be justified. On Friday, however, July Orange Juice hit a high of 137.2. Luckily, I did not go short on the commodity itself. Instead, I purchased a put option with a strike price of 120. This made great sense when the price was hovering around 130. It might still be a worthwhile position, should the short trend reversal materialize in the next 80 some-odd days. I thought that reversal was imminent when I purchased the option, but now it is merely possible. Had I gone short on the commodity itself, however, I would either have hit my stop and exited by now--permanently losing any hope of recovering the hundreds of dollars lost--or faced a margin call, losing more money than I even wanted to invest. Moral of the story: Enter a position tentatively; i.e., with options. If the market goes your way, you can either exercise your option or sell it to someone else at a profit. If you guessed wrong, all you stand to lose is the price of the option. Spend a little extra and buy the longer term options. That will give you more time to be right.