OT: what the heck is going on with bean prices?

I thought corn, wheat, milo (grain sorghum), soybean prices were all somewhat under the same market forces.

Guess I am wrong. Corn, wheat, and milo have all stayed at least steady or up a little in the last 10 days or so.

The beans are out and at the elevator back in Nebraska. They were $11.63 the day they were cut, they have been losing more every day. I have lost all of the .63 off the 11.63 in the last 10 days.

My sister and my share isn't all that much, but the .63 loss is right at $400.

Another dollar off and we won't make the real estate taxes.

I am going to hold for now. But if they go below $10.00 I am afraid they are just headed to a some time of low price bottom. DOUG

As You well know anything can effect the market. Maybe a company making soy ink went bust, or better weather in Brazil. I dont know if this would do it; But I read 3 days ago that J Deere is building 2 new plants in Brazil. If production is up there it will play havoc with bean prices here for a while! Thats my guess.

The harvest is about done for soybeans. The acres left are not that big of a percentage. So you are looking at the biggest the supply will get here in the USA. So the market is reflecting that fact. Also the world currency markets are going crazy with the European trouble. So you have a volatile soybean market.

We have had a record high price for the last year. It has effected usage and switched production to soybeans in areas that usually don't raise them. Also the South American producers are expanding all they can to take advantage of this market.

We have had several chances to price fall delivered soybeans above $13. Your local elevator would more than likely do contracts for as little as 250 bushels. It seems like you and your sister have about 600 bushels stored. A better way to put a price floor under them would have been to contract some at different times.

After planting and the beans are up and growing I feel safe selling 25% of my expected yield. Soybeans have only broken $14 dollars twice that I can remember. So when they got into the high $12 I contracted 1000 bushels. (all contracts Nov. Delivery)

Then mid summer after I was able to see how the weed control and rains where going I feel safe with pricing another 25% of my average yield. So I watched and caught another 1000 bushel at $13.25.

Then waited until mid to late August to see how the beans where looking. I then sold another 1000 bushels for in the lower $12 range.

At this point I was done forward selling. I had only 75 acres of soybeans this year. So my average of 58 bushel per acre (Ten year rolling actual production) made my estimated production be around 4200 bushels. I had pre-sold about 75% of that before harvest. I had an average of $12.85 on the three thousand bushels contracted. My actual production is going to be around 4900 bushels. So I will have about 1900-2000 bushels to price or sell later.

So in the future if you think you are going to have about that 600 bushel to sell then try to lock 250 bushel in if the price hits local highs. Then maybe later before harvest you could lock in another 250 if your beans look good. If your local elevator will not do small contracts then asked your tenant if he forward contracts any. If he does asked him if he would do a few extra bushels for you. The elevator can split the checks and payments on one contract. I have two different share crop arrangements that I include my land lords share in my contracts. They just have to understand that when we do it the beans are sold even if the market goes higher.

You need to realistic on those highs too. I know of a local guy that thought that beans where going to go higher when they hit $14.17 local. The highest price I ever have seen here. He still has over three thousand bushels left. He has lost almost $10,000 as of right now. You can't think that sale is going to be like hitting the lotto. Do some here and there to raise your average price. Plus put a floor under your crop.

Everything thats traded these days has wild fluctulations just the nature of out of control western economies with massive debt that exist day to day.

peak harvest usually equalls poor pricing .Everybody should understand a year and a eight months ago we had $3 corn $4 wheat $7 beans. The prices we have now may be here to stay or may not. If we knew what the prices were going to do we sure wouldn't bother raising the stuff. Paul

We all also need to remember that we haven't "lost" what we never had.

How can you loose something you never had?