Re: Marketing grain at local elevator

Posted by paul on December 04, 2015 at 12:34:38 from (76.77.197.114):

In Reply to: Marketing grain at local elevator posted by picassomcp on December 04, 2015 at 08:22:52:

Marketing is most farmers worst subject, so you ask good questions.

I need to learn much, much more, so probably shouldn't hand out advice. I've only been at it a few decades....

Many marketing plans involve selling 10-15% of your crop at set times, market be what it is. Just sell that 10% that day.

A very basic understanding of average market dips and swings applied to that 10% selling over the year will average you above average prices over the whole year. You won't sell the whole crop at the highest price; but anyone trying to do that generally ends up holding grain way too long and gets below average prices!

Soybeans depend on China buying soybeans. The world - USA and South America - produce way way more beans than they can use. And China buys many many many many soybeans. The rest of the entire world buys very few soybeans.

So..... The price you get here in the upper Midwest for soybeans depends on China. Period.

So to play the marketing game you need to watch growing conditions in USA, and Brazil and a tiny bit Argentina. (And watch the politics in South America - their political leaders tend to be broke and wish to tax farmers to death on export fees and inflation which kills their growing intentions.....) That will tell you how many soybeans will be available for sale.

Then you need to look at China, and see how eager they are to buy soybeans. China will play games, they know they are the only real world buyer. They have exported soybeans from their country to crash the market, them the ships turn around and head to another Chineese port and they 'buy' their own beans back. In the mean time they buy cheaper beans from us and Brazil.....

So, this year the USA grew a lot of beans, Brazil did well last season and looks to be growing a lot of beans, and China is in a financial downtrend and might not buy as many beans as they have in the past. The USA dollar seems to be getting stronger, so China has to pay more for our soybeans if they want any.

All together, it looks a little dismal for soybean prices. There is no good news......

We need to wait until February, when weather will be too dry or too wet in Brazil and their crop will look poor; or wait until end of May in the USA and our planting intentions will look poor from good weather for us. (If we have good spring weather we grow more corn - if we have bad spring weather in the USA we grow more beans....) Then maybe beans will climb up a little.

But we are at a bad time for beans, there are enough around the world and looks like everyone is going to plant plenty more and China looks like they are tightening their belt........

Years ago a neighbor had a 1400bu bin they wanted gone, I got it from them for free. Put it on a concrete hog pad I had, so had less than $50 invested in it, filled it with beans that fall.

Beans dropped $1 a bu over winter.

So that 'free' bin cost me over $1500 that year.

Some years it works out, some years you start shoveling for a loss.....

If farming were easy, everyone would do it. :)

Paul

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