Let's get started with our soybean panel. Ellen Dearden is here. She's with AgRevu out of Morton, Illinois. We hear her Thursday mornings on the opening market report at 08:55AM. Next to her is Danny Poff, who is with Strategic Farm Marketing.
Todd Gleason:He's in Champaign, Illinois. Opening market report again at 08:55AM on Friday morning, and then Greg Johnson is with us this morning, for, the soybean panel. He joins me on the closing market report on Wednesday afternoon. So Greg's kinda it's Greg's got a funny slot, coming up after Paul Cooley and then Jackie Fakes and then and then Greg. And, and, as you may have noticed if you listen, because people are here for such a long time, I tend to audition them during changes sometimes.
Todd Gleason:And, Greg was Greg was in that slot in the afternoon anyway. He'd been Monday, in the cash grain segment. Cash grain segment in in the closing market report went away. And so Greg then was in on well, was on Wednesday afternoons in the cash grain segment, and Jackie retired. And Greg was just doing it, and I would fill in with other people from time to time.
Todd Gleason:And finally, it was about seven or eight months later, I called Greg to talk to him, and I said, you do know you're just the analyst, right, for the afternoon. I thought
Greg Johnson:I was still auditioning.
Todd Gleason:No. He's still he might be. Do you want don't go away. Don't don't go away. No.
Todd Gleason:So so, but, you know, the the relationship, I think, that the radio station, whoever happens to be in my seat, and you all have with the analyst is important. And so that's the reason they're there for such a very long time, and we're very careful about who who who goes into those slots. And I do hear from you about who you like as well. Particularly, I hear because you understand when I'm auditioning, apparently, I didn't realize that exactly. But you do understand that because I heard when Wayne Nelson retired, and I kept having folks on, and I heard about who you wanted to have in that place.
Todd Gleason:Naomi Blum has taken that slot. We're glad to have Naomi on. She's missing us today. Mostly because she's like, a couple of others in Denver at the Commodity Classic still. So that's kind of the you know, we have this relationship, and I think you mostly have the relationship with the analyst, and it's important.
Todd Gleason:You know which days you like to listen to. You you know what you you kinda have an idea what the the analysts are gonna tell you, what their natural tendencies are. Zwicker always told me I was naturally bearish. And so, you know, when I'm asking questions, he's not wrong. I'm naturally bearish most of the time.
Todd Gleason:You probably figured that out. Good thing to know about the person who's asking the questions. So at this point, I'm not gonna ask a question. I'm gonna let the folks up here take five to six minutes each to tell you a little bit about the marketplace. I think, Ellen, I will give you the opening comment.
Todd Gleason:Thank you for coming over from Morton today. That was a long drive.
Ellen Dearden:Yeah. It was a long rainy drive.
Todd Gleason:Hell, yeah. That I I left early this morning so I could unload all this stuff before it rained. You'll have a rainy drive on the way home. Do we have dreary markets to look forward to in your opinion?
Ellen Dearden:Yeah. We do.
Todd Gleason:She's done. Next.
Ellen Dearden:When when we listened to, Joanna talk this morning first thing, we heard about what, South America crop prospects are, and that's really been building for, you know, fifteen, twenty years. Since the the turn of the century, we have really done a lot of education, to get, South American production up and going. And now we're kind of surprised to see how big that production is. And I think that's, you know, kind of stupid on our part. But, we we need to take a serious look at on the bean side of things, not just the production side, but the demand side.
Ellen Dearden:Because, like in corn, we have three different demand buckets to fill. You know, that's that's easy. We have exports as one of them, them. Feed use is one in ethanol or, you know, our processing. But in the bean side of things, we have processing and we have exports.
Ellen Dearden:And we're really out of the export market at, various times of the year. And we're really moving in that direction, rather rapidly here right now because Brazil is coming out, and it looks like their crop prospects are seriously large. When you look at the total South American production, how large that is, US production of soybeans now just pales in comparison. And yet, we're kind of out of the export market. And I'm going to say that it's not all just, export market.
Ellen Dearden:And I'm going to say that it's not all just a problem with policy on exports, but it's also a very strong dollar. That hurts us quite a bit in that market. So we need to keep that in mind. On the processing side of things, the processing margins have really slipped lately, and that makes it difficult to want to continue the strong pace that we ended the year with on, soybean processing. This is, in this location here, it's really a processing market.
Ellen Dearden:So as processing margins deteriorate, we need to keep that in mind. That means weaker basis and not necessarily a strong board. We may not have to drop a tremendous amount from where we are now on the board price, but it's certainly going to affect the basis being weaker. Now on the Illinois River, which is our market, the, load outs of beans have been slow, for those last several months. And, they've really trickled, trickled down tremendously.
Ellen Dearden:So now we have two buckets, use buckets that are, have leaks in them. And I think we need to keep that in mind. So rallies, rallies that go back into that $10.50 range, and keep in mind, November being slipped under $10 this morning, rallies back up into that $10.50 range. You ought if you haven't been selling any new crop beans, you better look pretty carefully at that. Downside risk, nine fifty.
Ellen Dearden:On the old crop beans, and there are some old crop beans left in the country, Of course, nobody would raise their hand and say, well, I have a few, but they're the the phone calls that I get in the office is, hey, I got this last 20%. Well, maybe a little more than maybe 30% of my old crop beans yet to move. And you know, that that's kind of a dead dog. We're going to have a lot of trouble there, especially in markets that are, processing markets, because I think that's just going to be a basis situation that looks poor. So keep in mind that we're probably in the middle of a trading range.
Ellen Dearden:We probably are going to hear an awful lot more about tariffs and all the horrible things that will happen with tariffs. I'm not so sure how that's gonna shake out in the long pole. We're really not in any favorable position to move stuff into China. They're the biggest buyers of beans. They say they only need 94, 90 five million metric tons of soybeans to be imported this year, but they have been moving their beans out of their farmer owned situation.
Ellen Dearden:They're, they're government owned stocks into their processors because their processor margins are good. So we need to keep in mind that we're kind of out of that big, big market on the export side of things. We need to develop and work on that, those markets. And who knows what's going to happen on the bean oil for, biofuels. I have no clue.
Ellen Dearden:We really have no policy right now. We have tentative policy, but that's, that's not anything you want to hang your hat on. So until we see meal and or bean oil both move higher, we're going to have a very difficult time in beans, in 2025.
Todd Gleason:Danny Poff?
Danny Pfoff:Sure. Great comments, Ellen. I think we should thank Todd for setting this up on tariff Tuesday. I really appreciate that. And, you know, you guys go talk about it and do your best.
Danny Pfoff:So here we are. You know, beans were kind of a tougher situation before this tariff rhetoric. And then, you know, Trump is supposed to make comments later today to congress. It's not a State of the Union address. So to say it's a fluid situation doesn't even really give it justice.
Danny Pfoff:You know? A lot of times, my my line has asked me in an hour because, you know, I'm on I was on Twitter the whole time, this morning, and Zelensky sounds like he he's more willing to you know, maybe we need to redo that Oval Office visit. That didn't go so well. Asked for a redo on that one. And and another thing, off topic but related, tomorrow is the first day of Lent.
Danny Pfoff:My daughter's six. She's proclaimed she wants to give up nothing this year. And I was explaining it to her how it works, and she said, yeah. I I don't wanna do that. So, maybe Trump will give up tariffs for Lent.
Danny Pfoff:That might be, that might get, his polls up a little bit. But, anyway, all jokes aside, beans are a tough situation. Lots of unknown. I'd like to talk about some things we do know at this point. Our Feb average on insurance is $10.54.
Danny Pfoff:Current board price, $9.99. So you're ahead of the game on that right away on your insurance. I think you gotta take a hard look at ECO this year, in my opinion. It's a 95% coverage with a higher subsidy rate this year at 65%. You have till March 17 this year due to the fifteenth being on the weekend.
Danny Pfoff:Okay? So we know that. So we'll see where that lands and, I like talking about things we know. Other thing we know, your ARC County price, is $12.17. That five year Olympic average is $12.17.
Danny Pfoff:So that is another leg up higher with your FSA program. We do know you have till April 15 this year to make that decision. And you guys, I don't know what it is this time of year, Feb, March, big things have happened. COVID, Feb twenty twenty. Three years ago, Russian invasion in Ukraine.
Danny Pfoff:You have till April 15 to make that decision. So you have to navigate that with your trusted adviser, but it could be a you could call for a switch towards towards PLC if we have an absolute free fall falling knife type of situation. But it appears to me, Russia, Ukraine, they they might wanna come to the table. Mexico's pretty reluctant, I think, to a trade war. They really need our corn.
Danny Pfoff:The infrastructure is just such a natural fit to go in there with their railroad. They've struggled with drought in Mexico. I'm getting off topic on corn. I know we're on a soybean panel, but these are all related topics. So the geopolitical front is very fluid.
Danny Pfoff:And and then one last, comment, and I think it'll transit transition well nicely to Greg, is the farmer's been a really good seller. We had a really good rally, and you know how I know they've been a good seller? Basis got smoked. Basis got smoked. Spreads widened out.
Danny Pfoff:So hats off to the room for taking advantage of that rally. You know, when you have an October average on insurance at at $4.16 and they're bidding you $4.70, 4 80, 4 90 cash, you know, you take advantage of the rally. You recognize the fun length when you get there. Usually, pretty good selling opportunity. So, Todd, I'll take your job.
Danny Pfoff:Let's transition to Greg. Did have you bought a lot of corn?
Greg Johnson:We bought a lot of corn and soybeans. Both good. Yeah. Baseball's having spring training right now, so I thought I would borrow a quote from one of the baseball all time greats, mister Yogi Berra, who said, it sure feels like it's deja vu all over again. Who remembers what happened on 07/06/2018?
Greg Johnson:Did I hear the word Trump tariffs? Yeah. The price right two weeks before that, in June of twenty eighteen, November beans were $10.50. Two weeks ago, ago November beans this year were 10.5. That year beans went all the way down to 8.25 in September before rallying back to $9 by the end of the year.
Greg Johnson:Hopefully we don't repeat that but, the carryout I was looking at the month by month carryouts in 2018. In June of twenty eighteen USDA's monthly supply and demand report had the estimated carryout for the year for beans at three eighty five million bushels. Guess where they are this year? Three eighty million bushels. After the tariffs went on July carryout five eighty, August seven 80 five, September eight 40 five, November nine 50 five million bushel carry out.
Greg Johnson:We actually got over a billion bushel carry out in December. '1 point zero '4 '5 before we came back down to seven ninety five for to end the year. But, my point is these numbers can change. The tariffs had a dramatic impact on exports that year. The one good thing as Danny said, farmers did a very good job of selling into this rally.
Greg Johnson:It's hurt the basis levels obviously, but we think we're farmers are 80% sold on both old crop corn and soybeans. That's the good news. You did a good job selling into the rally. The bad news is I don't think we're more than 15% sold on new crop. I know Todd when I'm on the radio with him, he he asked me and I say we should be a lot farther along than that and maybe that didn't look so good for a while, but we all know that prices go down faster than they go up and so hopefully people took advantage of that and got a little bit more new crop being sold, than what we did.
Greg Johnson:The other thing that I will mention kind of transition to a little positive here is seasonally, April, May, and June are historically the best time to sell new crop beans. So that's coming up. So, keep that in mind. Shameless plug, we offer at our elevator a seasonal daily averaging program. You just enroll bushels and it sells the same amount of bushels every day and at the end of that three month period, historically that's been a very good price.
Greg Johnson:It was a dollar and a half higher than the fall price last year. I can't say that's gonna happen again this year, but why not spread your risk out and put a little bit of bushels in, in that kind of a price range.
Todd Gleason:If you've got questions, just raise your hand. We'll get them answered. I do have a question for you based on, the historical facts that you gave us related to 2018. The one of the one of the things that happened in 2018 was the China was the the Chinese had a disease, African swine fever, that decimated their livestock herd, their hog herd. I suppose that won't be the case this year.
Todd Gleason:Again, maybe maybe we can hope or or or hope not, that is. Without that, and what we heard from Joanna this morning related to, exports both from Brazil and The United States and what China has been trying to take or let not take, what do you think their their imports will be from the globe and or from The United States? And how does that impact, what price what your view is of price going into the fall and after the fall? Because it was really about our our export time frame that September, October, November, December, early January that was impacted.
Greg Johnson:Yeah. I I think China has invested a lot of money in the South American infrastructure. They plan on buying beans from South America if at all possible. That's their first choice. We are going to be the seller of last resort.
Greg Johnson:And and they still need to buy a lot of beans. You know, South America can't produce produce all their or supply all their needs. So we're still going to buy supply beans to China. But, just just from a economic point of view, they they want to buy beans from South America. Now you throw the political uncertainty on top of that with the tariffs going back and forth.
Greg Johnson:I don't think we want to hang our hat on that. I think we wanna be and I have said all along, we wanna be more aggressive in selling beans than corn. I think there's a story out there for corn, and so maybe we try to break even on beans this year and make our money on corn.
Todd Gleason:Can somebody correct me if I'm wrong because I haven't been watching the news other than what Joe told us? China, put a tariff on corn coming into The United States, but apparently not soybeans.
Greg Johnson:Oh, no. It's soybeans too.
Todd Gleason:Oh, soy I did not okay.
Greg Johnson:So Different percentage.
Danny Pfoff:It's a different it's 10% on the beans and bigger on the corn. They also Is
Todd Gleason:it 15% then?
Danny Pfoff:I believe so. And they also banned three companies, specific businesses from
Todd Gleason:Who'd they ban? Do you know?
Danny Pfoff:I don't know. Does anybody know? It was very vague.
Greg Johnson:Tech. Not not ag companies.
Todd Gleason:Oh, it's tech tech companies.
Danny Pfoff:No. It's soybean imports.
Greg Johnson:Oh, really?
Danny Pfoff:Yeah. Hopefully, it was some small independent elevator that doesn't export.
Todd Gleason:Hold on. It was over phyto But who did they ban? Phytosanitary, do we know which companies?
Danny Pfoff:They yeah.
Todd Gleason:Who did they ban coming out of who'd they ban coming out of Brazil when they did that? Were any of the big ones in it? Bungee was in that? I don't remember. Okay.
Danny Pfoff:Again, fluid situation, folks.
Todd Gleason:Yeah. Changing changing by the hour, which tends to be fairly typical at this point. So do you have a question? Anybody out here? Otherwise, I'll continue on.
Todd Gleason:Alright. When you have a question, let me know.
Ellen Dearden:Can I make a comment quickly?
Todd Gleason:Yeah. You absolutely.
Ellen Dearden:The logistics area, has always been a real interest to me, and we The US really has not upgraded the port situation for exports. And the rail situation for corn, in particular, but also meal, going into Mexico, has had a lot of bugaboos because, the inspections at the border have been very slow. But, China came in and has thrown a lot of money in ports and also in rail, out of Brazil. And I think we need to keep in mind that we are really behind the eight ball on that.
Todd Gleason:Yeah. I I think the last one, at least in New Orleans, that was updated was in '12.
Ellen Dearden:New Twitter.
Todd Gleason:Trying to suspend the second expert. Lewis Drive. CHS, Louis Dreyfus, EGT. Yep. Okay.
Todd Gleason:And Bunge was listed there too. And one what was the last one? I didn't catch that. Anyway, so I believe that Panosha. Panosha.
Todd Gleason:Okay. Thank you. I I believe that the last, the most recent update or the newest port in New Orleans is in now knows, and that's Japan, consolidated grain. So ports are are are difficult. We don't we have not had the we have not had an infrastructure push in them.
Danny Pfoff:Yeah. And and, Todd, to follow-up on both these comments, something I I didn't really appreciate till recently, a little bit of a delayed harvest on the front end of Brazil harvest. Mhmm. But this crop size is Yes. It doesn't matter.
Danny Pfoff:One sixty eight, one 70 million metric tons. It's massive. And and the issue for The US export system isn't so much the front end, it's the tail. You know, when we take that How
Todd Gleason:long does it go into hours?
Danny Pfoff:Yeah. We take the baton and we become competitive on soybeans again. It may not be as early as we'd like. And that if that tail gets into our harvest September, October, and they're they're the cheapest origin, that that's a problem. And that that's besides the tariff issue, just the size of the South American supply is robust.
Ellen Dearden:So so not only did November beans slip under $10 today, but so did September. So yep.
Todd Gleason:That's the question, Greg, that Barish Todd asked you a lot. Right?
Greg Johnson:Yes.
Todd Gleason:Yeah.
Greg Johnson:Yeah.
Todd Gleason:Yeah. What what what's the window look like, especially if they have it, they get in planting early, which they didn't manage this year. But what does that window look like for the exports coming out of The United States? And how much does that impact what we're able to export?
Greg Johnson:Yeah. It it definitely shortens our window. As as Danny said, the the the they could be with a 70,000,000 metric ton crop, Brazil could still be exporting beans in September. That kind of pushes our window back to mid October. So that's not good.
Greg Johnson:We want that window open as quick as possible because I didn't want to bring this up either. I guess I'm mister mister negative day, but that year, the basis levels got to 70 under November, for about a month's worth of time because there was no export demand. So if if I mean, I I can speak as an elevator. If we can't export if we can't sell them, we're not we're not gonna bid up for them. I mean, we can only pay what we can sell them for, and that was a problem in 2018.
Todd Gleason:Boy, I hope we have better news in corn later today.
Greg Johnson:I I do have some good news at some point.
Todd Gleason:Yeah. Yes, sir. How do we tie in? I
Danny Pfoff:mean, sometimes.
Todd Gleason:So how do you use your how do you how do you crop insurance into your marketing? Danny, you wanna start?
Danny Pfoff:I'll really simplify it. You just sell the rally with confidence.
Todd Gleason:Yeah. You
Danny Pfoff:know? That's a really simplify a complicated thing. Because if you're short at the elevator, you get reimbursed with your put, and then you pay the elevator back if you're short. So sell the rally with confidence. You have bushels guaranteed, subsidized with your insurance.
Todd Gleason:Yeah. A lot harder to sell more more grain than you actually think you might end up with. But yeah. Sell below the cost of production. That's probably the problem.
Danny Pfoff:Well, I think a lot of insurance policies are below the cost of production anyway, especially soybeans. Corn, maybe not, but especially beans.
Todd Gleason:Yeah. So that he said, should we willing, sarcastically, we willingly sell, below the cost of production?
Danny Pfoff:Separate, but related, to transition a little bit, from that. You know, the secretary of ag, Brooke Rollins, has been pretty adamant. You know, we're gonna support the farmer. They're gonna be kind of in the crosshairs. You you know, we're gonna have to be up to speed on all the acronyms.
Danny Pfoff:You know, they were called MFP in the past. They had a new acronym here recently with this 10,000,000,000 on the planted acres. You guys should be hearing more about that really soon. Some sort of prefilled application on the $42 an acre on corn, 30 acres on beans.
Todd Gleason:Should be getting their checks.
Danny Pfoff:We You gotta sign an application is what we're hearing. And it's a 85% rate of that first tranche.
Todd Gleason:Wait. Wait. What?
Danny Pfoff:It's a farm
Todd Gleason:There's more news that I do not know about today than usual. Alright. So Wait. So so this is this is the lame duck session.
Danny Pfoff:Farm act. Okay.
Todd Gleason:A r a.
Danny Pfoff:Yeah. So that's 30,000,000,000 The money
Todd Gleason:the money that's already been allocated is supposed to be just sent. No.
Danny Pfoff:No. Okay.
Todd Gleason:Not going to be just sent. How are they gonna pull that off in time? Alright. Hang with me. They've got, like, twenty days.
Todd Gleason:Go on.
Danny Pfoff:Hang with me. Yeah. Because the deadline's March 21. Okay? There's 30,000,000,000 allocated to this program.
Danny Pfoff:Okay? 10,000,000,000 is just on twenty twenty four planted acres. Okay? We're hearing it's gonna be some sort of prefilled application likely administered by FSA. Do not call FSA today.
Danny Pfoff:They're usually the last to know, unfortunately. But they're gonna do a first tranche, 85% factor of those, those dollars. This is
Todd Gleason:the second set of dollars, not the $42.
Danny Pfoff:That's the same $42. Okay? And then the 20,000,000,000, okay, they're gonna base that off of I'm gonna jog you guys' memory. WIP plus, ERP. Do you guys remember those programs?
Danny Pfoff:They gave you higher insurance levels on the crop years of '23 and '24. So there's really double the funding there for that disaster payment, which may be renamed. So this is kind of our sources in DC, what we're hearing. It's not black and white. You're not gonna find it on a website quite yet.
Todd Gleason:I I'm I'm gonna fact check you real quick because I saw Nick in the back of the room, and I just wanna make sure that this is right. Where did he go? He was just standing up. He sat down. Do you know, Nick?
Todd Gleason:Is is that right? Does that sound correct to you? News to you. News to you too. Okay.
Danny Pfoff:If anybody follows Paul Neefer, you know what I'm talking about.
Todd Gleason:Oh, DTN Progressive Farmer. I don't remember.
Danny Pfoff:Yeah. Progressive Farmer.
Todd Gleason:Yeah. Progressive Farmer. Okay. Alright. Good enough.
Todd Gleason:Back to soybeans.
Greg Johnson:Can I also answer his question? Yeah. Oh,
Todd Gleason:yes. I forgot about his question. So so How do we do this when we're on production?
Greg Johnson:The cost of production. Most farmers are worried about selling below the cost of production then having a short crop and not having the bushels. When was the last time that happened? 2012, right? Yeah.
Greg Johnson:The drought year? Most farmers I talked to said they made more money in 2012 than they did in years prior or after because of the crop insurance. So I think you can feel very confident selling. You still wanna sell at good prices, but I think the insurance is is good enough that it should protect you in the case of a short crop.
Todd Gleason:Helen, what are you telling producers about what they can do? Well, things change today for you and for everybody else. What do they do?
Ellen Dearden:We're we're on pause right now, but we were pretty active sellers on this rally, both old and new crop. We really pushed new crop sales up to 40 to 50%, which is tremendously high for us this early in the crop year. And I just felt that we needed to to see that kind of protection. And as Danny said earlier, there's still a story on corn, but, man, there's not much story on beans.
Todd Gleason:No. Not much story on beans. Any way to make that change? Plant corn. Plant corn.
Danny Pfoff:Plant corn.
Todd Gleason:Oh, plant corn. Well, that'll change things. Mhmm. Yeah. Wait till we get to March 31.
Todd Gleason:Right? Yeah. And we have that corn number come out. Surely, you've got a question. Yes, Harlan.
Todd Gleason:Dollar so high? Why is the US dollar so high, and what impact does that have on our export market?
Greg Johnson:Our government is such a good steward of our finances that
Todd Gleason:Nice. So if you have soybeans, you've not marketed new crop. You are now behind the eight ball. I guess, And I think, Ellen, you gave us a price at $10.50, so I I know where you're at. So if if we get a rally to $10.50, you're gonna sell at least 40 or 50% of the crop, I suppose, at that point.
Todd Gleason:Depending on what depending on well, I don't know what it depends on. Yeah. Well, I
Ellen Dearden:was $10.50 was November beans. $10.50 November beans. Yeah.
Todd Gleason:I know.
Ellen Dearden:Okay. I I I don't really have an upside objective for getting lots more beans sold because I had to really pull teeth to get guys to make sales, new crop sales. Right. And, again, you know, 50% is pretty aggressive.
Todd Gleason:Well, I was working with new crop mostly because I think if they've got old crop left, left, then they'll figure it out between now and whenever, or roll it, one of the two, which apparently happens on time from time to time. So what what do you think, Greg? What what kind of targets should they set at this point?
Greg Johnson:Okay. In anticipation of this meeting, I did a little research, and I looked at the price range of soybeans over the last ten years, whether the carryout's tight at 5% or big at 13%. But the price of beans from high to low on average is any guesses? How much how the fluctuation between high and low for the year?
Todd Gleason:$6.
Greg Johnson:6 bucks. No. Too high.
Ellen Dearden:Don't we wish?
Greg Johnson:$2.70.
Danny Pfoff:Oh, twice?
Greg Johnson:The highest it's ever been is $3.80, the wide in in the last ten years from high to low, dollars 3.8. The the narrowest is a dollar 40, but $2.70. So let's use $2.70 as a price range. Okay? Now I'm a little bit more negative, I guess, because Todd makes me negative when he calls
Todd Gleason:me all the time. But Yeah. You're going to blame me from now on, aren't you? Thanks.
Greg Johnson:But but where we went in 2018, I'm using $8.70 as a low. But if we have a $2.70 range, that means $11.40 potentially. Now, maybe we don't have the $2.70 range this year. I'm really not thinking beans are going to $11 without a lot less acres or drought. But the midpoint of that is ten zero five.
Greg Johnson:Okay? Everybody can make up their own highs and lows, but, you know, the midpoint is ten zero five. And we're there, a little bit below today, but we'll be back above it at some point in time, hopefully. But I think it comes back to you just have to look, is there more upside or downside? And in my opinion, there's more downside on beans than there is upside.
Greg Johnson:So anytime they're in the upper half of that range, anytime they're above 10.05, you probably need to sell beans. And if you get too far out over your skis, you can always look at options. I mean, and I know a lot of people don't like to use options, but you got to get to 50% sold before you even have to worry about that. You've got crop insurance. So, like I say, I think you just break even on beans this year and try to make your money on corn.
Todd Gleason:Okay. Danny, I'll ask you the same question with a couple of caveats, because you do, your strategic farm marketing the sell crop insurance, and you have some pretty heavy background with ADM and the cash grain situation. So how do you put it all together to make a good marketing plan for soybeans going forward?
Danny Pfoff:I think the ranges, Greg alluded to means be disciplined and have offers working. Even if that seems maybe kinda silly, if we have a pretty much $10 beans right now, if that's $10.50 to $10.80, maybe even a little a little up there, have them working. Be disciplined. Don't pull the offers.
Todd Gleason:That's, Cancel with close.
Danny Pfoff:That don't that's a sin in the industry. So So be disciplined, have the offers working. Anytime you can sell above that Feb average, that's usually a pretty good pretty good business to be in, which we're $10.54. Okay? And I do think to kinda tie this panel with the corn panel, feel like to me, you you know, tariffs aside, soybeans best chance is corn because corn's a much tighter situation.
Danny Pfoff:So if we have a situation with the safrinha double crop corn in Brazil, we're going through the dry season perhaps, or The US Midwest, you know, this this seed still in the barn. Beans are kind of tagging along at in some degree.
Todd Gleason:Okay. So this is the bearish tide coming out. So we are at 10%, at least at the moment, for old crop. And I think the new crop numbers were roughly the same for stocks to use ratio, 10%. Weren't we about that?
Greg Johnson:Just shy. Yeah. Seven point
Todd Gleason:Why? Two. So here's my question. Why is that tight? Because that historically, that's not tight.
Todd Gleason:That's middle of the road. Right? Not On corn? Yeah.
Danny Pfoff:We're right at 10, I believe, on corn.
Greg Johnson:I thought you're talking soybeans.
Todd Gleason:No. No. On on corn. I no. I've I switched topics with you for just a second.
Todd Gleason:But I wanna know why why why it is that corn at 10% stocks to ratio. And it it I ask because I hear this from more than one of the analysts. Why is that why does that is it the 1.54 that that in billion bushels carry out that makes it feel tight, is tight? Am I wrong about the 10% mid midpoint? I mean, I just I wanted because there the and it makes a difference because is it really tight?
Danny Pfoff:I just think that the bigger point is, you know, we're not on fumes. No one's saying we're out of corn. But it's it makes it interesting when you're carry in from this year. In December, we thought it was 2,100,000,000 into next year on corn. I know I'm on the bean panel,
Todd Gleason:but I'm talking about corn. No. I switched. Yeah.
Danny Pfoff:But now we're fine. But now that carry in is 1,500,000,000 just overnight with that January report. So in my my mind, it just makes that more if that weather headline, which probably my first year doing this where we don't have some sort of weather market, talk to Eric Snodgrass. I hear it about it every day. It makes a weather story that much more consequential on corn.
Danny Pfoff:That doesn't mean you get complacent and don't do any marketing, but soybeans will kinda be along for that ride. Corn's in the driver's seat in my my opinion.
Todd Gleason:Okay. That's bearish, Todd. We'll get back to corn later in the day. I think we're close to does anybody have a question out here that they wanna ask still? Otherwise, we'll get a final word from each of them.
Todd Gleason:Greg, I'll start with you and then work our way back to Danny.
Greg Johnson:Okay. Three points when it comes to new crop sales. Lower your sites. Be be, realistic. Two, use the seasonality to your advantage.
Greg Johnson:Sell some in April, May, June, even if you don't think it's a great price. And number three, if you do use options, please don't just go long calls. An at the money call costs 60¢ in soybeans. At the very least, sell a call that's a dollar higher, and you can cut your cost in half from 60 to 30. Do not just spend 60¢ on a call.
Greg Johnson:That's just throwing bad money after good in my opinion. I I the joke is the farmer told somebody that he put two kids through college using options.
Todd Gleason:Unfortunately, they were the
Greg Johnson:brokers' kids. So there So there there is a time and place for options. Just just be be realistic. Okay? Don't don't, you know, you you can you can sell 40% of your crop and I still tell people this, they get upset because the market goes higher.
Greg Johnson:I say you want the market to go higher, you've still got 60% of a crop left to sell. Until you get over half sold, you want the market to go higher. And even then I would argue you still want the market to go higher even if you're 70% sold. So, lower your expectations, be realistic, and, use the seasonality to your advantage.
Todd Gleason:Greg Johnson is with TGM Total Grain Marketing. We hear him on the closing market report Wednesday afternoon. From AgriView is next to him. He airs on Thursday mornings on the opening market report, and it was in Morton, Illinois. Ellen, your final words.
Ellen Dearden:I liked Greg's ideas. The realistic, expectations is probably one of the things that I have a hard time convincing people that they're not realistic. But I I think also look at all the venues that you have to sell your crop, and don't, you know, don't lock yourself into one location even if it's the one that's only seven miles from the farm. You know, look at whatever's available, and I think you will be surprised at how many places you can do some selling to.
Todd Gleason:And Danny Poff is next to it. Ellen, Danny, my apologies to it. Just it wasn't it wasn't about you. That would that that is a it's one that I've thought about a lot, and I think it might be the farm dog team that pushes me that way. So anyway, we'll talk we'll talk to the farm dog team.
Danny Pfoff:I'm not even sure what you're apologized for, but I'm
Todd Gleason:good with it. Okay. Yeah. Whatever. An apology.
Todd Gleason:Whatever. Your final word for the day, Dan?
Danny Pfoff:Great great comments, both of you guys. I'm happy to be up here with, with you folks. I I just reiterate, I think use offers, but I use those every year. We get a little volatility, a little weather market every year. I think we're in a we're kinda back to we gotta be in the loop on the the alphabet soup government acronym of the day.
Danny Pfoff:Because I think a lot of the government things I was talking about, they might get relabeled. Okay? A new acronym. I was gave a market outlook. The ERP, we thought we knew, might become Trump ERP.
Danny Pfoff:I'm kinda joking. Yeah. Kinda not joking. You know, that might get relabeled. So, stay up to speed.
Danny Pfoff:A lot of that stuff, I think you will have to sign and agree to. So I think we're just coming into that that year, era. So lean on your trusted advisers, and you really have a safe spring. It'll be here soon.
Todd Gleason:Give these folks a nice round of applause. Thank you to them.