Grain Angles
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Grain Angles: Don’t fall into ‘woulda, coulda, shoulda’
With the last vestiges of winter challenging our resolve to embrace the cold, we know that a warm sunny beach sounds pretty nice. Wishful thinking can haunt us in the grain markets as well. With the steady decline that we have seen in the price of grain, we are tempted to fall in the trap of thinking, “woulda, coulda, shoulda.”
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Grain Angles: Consider true cost of storage
Now that we have the grain in the bin and we still feel tired and weary from the long harvest it is tempting to think our risks are well managed. Now we must remain vigilant on monitoring the grain quality in the bin.
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Grain Angles: Record corn crop; adjustments coming?
The folk wisdom in the grain trade that “big crops get bigger and small crops get smaller” was spelled out in the Jan. 12 U.S. Department of Agriculture report.
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Grain Angles: Focus on finding solutions, not problems
As we begin the new year it is time to look forward to the next decade. Looking back can be helpful in understanding where we have come from and to gain perspective, but making plans for the future helps to guide us to our destination.
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Grain Angles: Looking back to plan ahead
As the snow falls and we wrap up another year, I realize that this is the last column that I will write of this decade. It doesn’t seem like it was that long ago when we were debating the fear of “Y2K” and wondering if our society would grind to a halt as the computers lock up.
Clearly this turned out to be an unfounded fear and not a beat was missed as we entered into the decade of 2000. The drive to replace our old computers drove the technology market into a frenzy and we thought all business was going to be done over the internet. The technology bubble burst leaving investors in “dot-com” businesses (that never generated a profit) holding worthless stock.
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Grain Angles: Risk management is every-day thought
Having better harvest weather the last 30 days was an absolute blessing. We now have the winter weather that we could have experienced in November.
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Grain Angles: Much-anticipated grain fills pipeline
We have finally enjoyed some sunshine and harvest activity that has eased our anxiety to a degree.
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Grain Angles: Weather delay puts emotions on edge
The value of a commodity is determined by the number of people interested in owning it, and the emotional component drives the magnitude of the price movement.
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Grain Angles: Harvest hold-up testing patience
The current wet, cold weather is challenging harvest and it is not a crop until it is in the bin. Waiting to harvest a big crop can test the patience of producers and all who await the grain to fill the marketing channels.
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Grain Angles: Risk management paying off for producers
Swine production enterprises have experienced nearly two years of a down cycle. Balance sheets that were healthy just two years ago have seen working capital eliminated, pushing many producers to the brink of insolvency. Yet there are a few producers who have managed through this volatile period with less financial pain.
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