Holding grain for market highs?

Recent government grain reports showing low-end-of-year carryover stocks have sent corn, soybean and wheat futures prices upward at rates that make crop farmers smile. For most, their present marketing plan will be to hold and sell at the market peak. “Rethink that!” says crops analyst Melvin Brees at the Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute (FAPRI). “Hitting the high depends mainly on luck and is nearly impossible.”

Grain owners should have plans in place, now, for marketing both the old crop and new crop. “No one wants to sell when prices are going up,” Brees says. “But, expecting these price levels to last until harvest time might be asking a lot!”In other words, if prices can go up fast, they come down faster.

“We are in a complicated marketing situation, but it can be managed,” Brees says. In his University of Missouri “Decisive Marketing Newsletter,” Brees outlined several plans. “Current prices offer profit opportunities that are well above typical break-even prices. Don’t let profitable prices slip away. It is one thing to pass up a good price on the way up, but don’t miss it on the way down.” Read more...

This blog is written by Martin Little The Global Miller, published and supported by the GFMT Magazine from Perendale Publishers.