.giolucas:
I understand what you are saying but is not the futures markets supposed to predict what a crop is supposed to be worth in the future? There is a huge difference in a 14b crop compared to a 11b crop in the corn market. The boots on the ground people, who are witnessing the damage first hand daily are raising the alarm that there is an iceberg dead ahead. The market is responding by increasing the speed and setting the course dead ahead saying we need to make it to New York on time! I have read on here that it is just a few people complaining about the bad crops and the good people are not saying anything. If that were the case this site would have to sit back and just listen to the crickets chirp. When it is all said and done, anyone who has harvested the corn, knows that while the yield monitor is showing 200 bph half the row, they tend to forget when the other half was reading 0 that it will only average to 100, yet they will tell you only about the 200 reading! I would postulate that only when conditions are really bad do you have people telling you how bad it really is as it is the only way they can assuage their angst. When you don't have much to sell and Mr. Market is saying sell it for $4.50 before it goes lower, it adds insult to injury when two months down the road the trade says we did not raise what we thought we would and the price goes to the high 7's. It is like a card game and you have to guess if your opponent is bluffing and when you get down to it the market should not work that way. If the USDA is going to be the neutral arbitrator then traders as well as farmers have the same level playing field. In today's modern computer age, when farmers have to certifiy what we have planted and where, juxaposed with weather data and crop insurance records, all that would have to be done is plug in a yield. As you say though the futures price discovery makes money short or long, if you just can get on the right side of the trade. I also understand backyardits hits all of us farmers that tend to make us bullish, and if we are we store it in the bin; or bearish and we can sell it today and lock in our prices. I am sure the shorts know what they are doing but when the steamroller operator is screaming to get out of the way as he careens down the hill with no brakes and they are still picking up dimes out of the street in front of it- they can not say they were not warned.
