No Don,

[kraft-t]

I don't farm in the desert but maybe I do this year. I don't use a hammer, I use a screw driver. I'd rather screw than hammer>

[kraft-t]

$5 corn is not a bad sale if your cost of production is below that.

[BA Deere]

5 bucks is a good sale?? Only chumps sell for 5 bucks, I can't recall the last time I sold for 5 bucks. Sorry everyone i'm just being silly 🙂

[Palouser]

I'm going to mess with you a bit Don. Let's admit that people have different marketing sensibilities and none is going to be right or wrong all the time. Having said that, after your sales you have gone into the mode of expressing great relief and satisfaction and indicating that your sale was good enough for you. However 😉 you have also implied that anyone waiting for higher prices is probably playing with fire and now on the speculative side of things.

I play an entirely different marketing game than you, maybe have an entirely different perspective than you and back that up with a huge amount of information gathering, and do depend a bit on experience, intuition and some nonchartable trends. And I'm usually succesful in my very opportunistic selling pattern. I often hold longer than anyone I know. 

Let's just admit that there are different ways of skinning the cat that are successful, and some of these strategies require different perspectives and information. I see absolutely no need to ctiticize anyone's approach to marketing that goes to some effort to analyse and make the decisions. I do see many who don't do much information gathering and maybe don't do a great job of marketing but the top analysts never compile much of a winning streak either.

You could offer your strategies rather than criticism, though I know you are a good guy and don't wish anyone ill.

[kraft-t]

You are a student of fundamentals just as some gamblers are card counters. I'm a mathematician in that I don't try to anticipate market direction because I am not good at it. As a permabull I was long and wrong most of the time.

Now I pretend to be a money manager in that I am well aware of personal crop inventory and potential production with an eye toward profitability. That allows spreadsheet analysis of crop value at different price levels. . Thus market topping is not a realistic objective. Dollars per acres is and X number of bushels times Y number of bushels = gross dollars and if that number is quite attractive that is my objective.

My goal is "wow, that is nice number!" Not, " holy cow that is a great number!" You see I have been a miserable failure at acheiving top dollar for my crop. I'm much better at selling than I used to be and we have done a great job of debt reduction and money managment.

I don't think you are stupid in your pursuit of better prices. Quite the contrary. You study fundamental supply demand and sell accordingly. You can afford that. Some folks can't and the influence of super bulls may well be a negative for those financially challenged.

I don't mind the bulls but they could entertain the possibility that they may be wrong. The truth is I am always wrong as I usually sell to little or too much. But I don't encourage people to engage in high risk betting and that pursuit of ever higher prices can be really costly.

Even you can  be wrong but you can wait it out until you are right. Some folks don't have that luxury!

One thing about speculating on grain in the bin, the losses are not limited by the tax code.