Any New Marketing Plans For You?

[JimMeade]

Curious - are any of you taking any marketing courses or seminars, changing brokers, adding brokers, firing brokers, subscribing to new marketing newsletters, joining marketing clubs, talking to the Extension Farm Managment specialist?

I sit in on most of the Extension seminars.  Subscribe to one newsletter.  Talk to both my cash buyer and futures broker freely, depending on what is going on.  What's new?  I'm feeling the need to get smarter about marketing.  In Particular, I do a poor job of exiting positions which turn against me.

Most of the exit strategies have built-in weaknesses.  I've proven most of them  🙂

Anyone else trying to learn anything this winter?

[BA Deere]

The winter seminars last year did more dirt than good, they got us all beared up, I think there can be such a thing as too much information.  It looks like alot of us missed the new crop bean selling opportunity, but Webster City Sue on M2M said we`ll get another chance this summer.

[sw363535]

Too much "called" information.....BA....   Your right though way too much opinion and guessing and less information  

Not much information gathering being done...  and we are getting too far from the action...

Just got my memory jogged today for the last time Kansas sent some strong leadership to Washington....... uninvited as I remember...

[elcheapo]

sw....is that a picture of pat roberts when he first went to washington.....and had hair ??

[elcheapo]

i have talked to several elevators, about the products the have available.

scouler is pushing a "marketing pool" done by their pro-hedge division...... about 10 a bu

several offer basis contracts, i think those are 5 cents a bu

same, on what they called an hta.....where the basis could be changed, but the board price could not, that was about 7 cents a bu.

asked, i want to have something where i can set the basis at maybe a better time, and the ability to maybe roll up several time..

one grain person told me, that is called "doing what you are doing now, nothing".

looking a bins...don't know yet...alot of management.....always worried about bugs and stuff going out of condition....

also looking/thinking semi....alot of expense....

i'm looking at a situation on the wheat where we might be able to go to a gluten plant...and gain 50 cents...but will need

bins, and would have to figure out how to ship...i have enough problem with a stright axle truck...you don't want to see

me in a semi !!!

we have no market option for soybean in the area....only crusher is about 85 miles away

milo, have to ethonol plants in the "area".....one about 50 miles another about 75....could gain 20 to 30 over local....

but need to store, and the shipping issue.

i have a "feeling"....there might be a drought afoot...we had 40 inches of rain this year, and the ground is like concrete.

you can look at the nws maps, and i've pushed them out to a year...same thing, average to above average temps,

and equal chances to below for moisture....

i'm not saying that there will be no rain.....but far less than this past year, with the good yeilds, and some areas will be more

lucky than others.

if someone can tell me how to first draw a line in the sand now as a starting point ....and the ability to roll up, and if basis

ever gets better.....fix that....and all of this for little if anything.......let me know !!!!

one comment...one of the grain people when i asked about basis, said that new crop wheat, they have it now bid at the

"historical basis"....hmmmm, i don't think 90 cents under is "historical"........i think 50 under would be more like it.

part of the key might be on the cost side next year.....on beans, it will be pre plant herbicides...maybe liberty as a control option...

but getting some round up ready 1 beans for $25 bucks a bag...sure looks pretty....now if we could just get a herbicide program

figured out that will not break the bank....

milo...clisto is supposed to become generic this year....so making a home brew wih generic clisto, with generic bicept, might

be a winner...early research is showing that milo with insecticide will give some protection to the sugar cane aphid...

big management key this year is to get a "tolerant" to SCA number....although not perfect...still maybe need to spray.

i do have 2 companies left that offer milo, without all the fancy seed treatments....

for "flex" acres, i might go with millet.....it could be a nightmare if you had sudan, and got hit with SCA....according to reports,

the honeydew loves to plug up swathers and balers....but i'm wondering , it you can just swath it, and let it dry for

a while, would that avoid making a mess of the baler ?

corn.....sorry, i just can't see how dryland can do it around here, but some are lucky tho.....and even planting late

(late june, early july)....and getting it to work.....some even double cropping following wheat !!!

all that work and expense for 60 bu corn....personally i can't see it, but maybe i'm wrong.

[rayjenkins]

Here is the # 1 thing I caught from your post, El Cheapo

"and all of this for little if anything"

That right there is the number one reason so many folks hold grain unpriced

best of luck to ya

[sw363535]

At this point it is more about "what to plant" than what to sell.... and until that decision is made whether to hold on to whatever may get produced is a little premature.  Especially for those who do not have storage to bypass the basis virus.

Unless we get some serious changes in markets, wheat and beans are the benefactors of this market....

Milo leads corn because of it's cheaper cost per acre and bushel on dry land acres.  Lowering the loss per acre is where the planning goes in survival mode --- in the months that plan cash flows when losses are assured..  Corn is just too expensive to bet on.....

Wheat can add value on the hoof as well as in the bin.  Has been scratching bottom market wise longer and can be reseeded cheaply.  The cheapest long shot.

Beans may be the only grain that has a chance for a profit......

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The part of marketing that I find discouraging at this point, is how disconnected it is from historic data..... We keep talking about what markets have done and how they relate to historic trends, but the precepts of the market are changed. Like on Market 2 market this morning.   Historic data relates to the US crop history and the present futures market is the global pricing function.  The two don't relate.  Best example is corn which might be grown in the US in record amounts approaching 14-15 billion bushels.  Yet usage demand is supposedly at the 14 billion bushel mark and trending upward.  That ratio is as strong as I can remember, in a country that has always enjoyed the ability to overproduce... The tight ratio does not reflect a price level this far below cost of production.  And I think that is why we do not hear much from marketing planners... Opportunity for the pricing/hedging function is greatly diminished.  It is totally a spec market.  That is what is killing coops and creating basis extremes.

[Reno31]

When I look at a corn chart for the last two years I think my plan is to take a six month marketing nap,

wake up sell all of last years and most of next years in about a five day time frame and go back to

napping for another year. Now soybeans might keep a guy awake for most of the year.

You never know when they can take off.

[JimMeade]

I've never found one reason to put any credibilty in Sue Martin.  I'm not saying we won't get a marketing opportunity next summer, just not expecting one based on her prediction.

[JimMeade]

The factors in favor of a drought:  La Nina.  Drought in SE US.  But that is pretty slim basis for making huge moves.  More like need to be ready to address it.  

And it can be just as powerful if it's wrong.  I bet we would not have a drought in 16 and was right.  I bet on huge production and was right.  What was I wrong about?  Everyone else expected a dorught and ran the prices higher on me.  Nothing likek being right on the fundamentals and wrong on the market.