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Established 1988
Commodity Week is a weekly wrap-up of the CME Group grain markets with analysis and guest interviews. The program is generally recorded Thursday afternoons and posted online by 7:00 p.m. central. It airs on WILL AM580 during the 2:00 p.m. hour each Friday. Commodity Week is a production of University of Illinois Extension and Illinois Public Media. Like the daily Closing Market Report, it is hosted by University of Illinois Extension Farm Broadcaster Todd Gleason.
website: willag.org
twitter: @commodityweek
cw260723
The July 23 edition of Commodity Week, hosted by Todd Gleason, features agricultural market analysis from panelists Greg Johnson, Dave Chatterton, Curt Kimmel, and emeritus guest Wayne Nelson. The central theme of the program revolves around recent price rallies in the grain markets, with soybeans reaching the $12 range and corn nearing $5. The panelists strongly encourage farmers to focus on securing profitability through incremental, scale-up sales rather than trying to perfectly time the absolute top of the market. Key drivers of these market dynamics include highly variable Midwestern crop conditions—stemming from a wet planting season and localized dry spells—alongside significant global factors such as the Russian-Ukrainian war, a European drought, the South American El Niño, and the unpredictable nature of Chinese agricultural demand. The episode concludes on a sentimental note as Curt Kimmel announces his retirement at the end of the month, prompting fond farewells and reflections on his long career from his colleagues.
Panelists
- Dave Chatterton, SFMarketing.com
- Greg Johnson, TotalGrainMarketing.com
- Curt Kimmel, AgMarket.net
- Wayne Nelson, WILLAg Emeritus
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Todd Gleason This is the July 23 edition of Commodity Week.
Announce: Todd Gleason services are made available to WILL by University of Illinois Extension.
Todd Gleason: Well, welcome to Commodity Week. I am Todd Gleason. Our panelists for the day include Greg Johnson. He’s at TGM, that’s Total Grain Marketing, right here in Champaign County, Illinois. Curt Kimmel is here from agmarket.net, and from Strategic Farm Marketing is Dave Chatterton. Commodity Week, of course, is a production of Illinois Public Media. It’s public radio for the farming world online on demand at willag.org. Let’s begin with this question. Greg Johnson, throughout the spring and the early summer months, there have been opportunities that you and most everybody else that’s been on the air have said farmers should take advantage of, particularly as corn and/or soybeans reached at first the $11 range, and now the $12 range, and $5 for corn. Are those good decisions? Are those places that farmers remain happy about marketing?
Greg Johnson Well, the farmers are definitely asking how high can this market go, and of course nobody knows the answer to that. So my reply is that’s not the correct question to ask. The correct question to ask is, can I make money selling grain at these prices? And with $12 soybeans, the answer is obviously yes. With $11 beans, the answer is still yes. So farmers are kicking themselves for having sold some $11 beans just three weeks ago, and now they’re not sure whether they want to sell $12 beans because they feel like $11 was a mistake and they’re wondering if $12 is going to be a mistake. The answer is, for two different reasons, probably no. You can make money at $11 and $12, that averages out to $11.50. And the other thing is, a year ago, one year ago today, we were paying $9.95 for cash soybeans. Futures were probably $10.25, but my point is we’re $2 higher than we were a year ago, and while this market has gone up because of some weather concerns and some other demand-driven issues, we can go back down again. So the answer to whether farmers should be selling beans at these levels, I think is yes. Nobody is saying sell 100% of the crop at these levels, but there’s nothing wrong with making some sales at these levels.
Todd Gleason Curt Kimmel, you’re shaking your head in agreement?
Curt Kimmel Yeah, I mean this is an opportunity to get caught up. I mean, you go back a year ago as Greg mentioned, a lot of beans were sold off the combine on fears that we were going to see China not buy any beans, fears that there’s no storage, fears we’re going to have huge bean acres, and all of a sudden here we see a whole different kind of opportunity in front of us. The best way is to do a scale-up selling program. We’re getting to a point now where we’re getting a kind of a handle on what type of production you might have, but if you go back we’ve been in a put option or a price floor strategy mode here. So it’s an excellent opportunity to have a price floor but leave your upside open on maybe being too aggressive on the cash sales. We’re in a situation where you can roll those price floors up and raise your floor, but the bottom line, as Greg mentioned there, is profitability. You got to go for it.
Todd Gleason Curt Kimmel mentioned China and whether they might buy. There were fears last fall, there continue to be those, though they have been into the marketplace. The question has been, will they meet the demands of the market? And I call them demands mostly because the market I think has a lot of expectations that China will make the purchases. It has befuddled me I think to some extent when I watch the purchases, the flash come in, the market jump on an expectation that it had, and it’s usually buy the rumor sell the fact, it appears to be buy the rumor buy the fact in this case sometimes to me.
Dave Chatterton Yeah Todd, it’s a really interesting situation. I mean I think you have to give, I shouldn’t say give credit to, but we’ve seen China do things that we didn’t expect. So they bought 12 million metric tons of old crop beans that were in some cases a dollar or more premium to what could be originated out of South America. And that was a political tit-for-tat over tariffs. Now we’re in a situation where we’ve been advertised of 25 million metric tons of soybeans by the end of the calendar year. That’s 920 million bushels, Todd. That’s a lot of beans, as well as 17 billion in other ag. And that 17 billion is a big number, you can’t really find a way to get to that number by buying milo and rice and all these small grains and other things, you have to probably include a lot of corn in that total. The question is, is China going to live up to those commitments or supposed commitments? I think this week we got a sign in the fact that President Xi of China or the China administration at least confirmed that Xi will be coming to Washington in September for a face-to-face meeting with Trump. It’s expected that that will be the official seal of this particular deal that’s talked about. And China has been active buying beans. They bought 900 million metric tons two weeks ago, about almost 500,000 last week, and they’re at around 300,000 in flash sales so far this week between China and unknown. So it looks like they’re moving that way. Our sources in China indicate that there’s a pretty good chance that they’re going to live up to those commitments. And if they do, it really changes our balance sheet. So I think we have two things that are very different this year than last year. One of those things is certainly the fact that weather is different this year and more challenging for US crops. I think the other thing is the China factor. But getting back to what you said about sales, I don’t understand the “hey I regret these sales.” If you make a sale, I want that sale to be early on in the process. I want that sale to be the worst sale I ever make. I want that market to go up and up and up and up because I have more to sell, and I think that’s the way to look at it to the point that Curt and Greg made. And so you can be a little remorseful that, hey I didn’t catch the top, but look, this is a long game and we’ve got a long way to go and just as quickly as we’ve come up, we could certainly turn around with the right headlines and go right back down.
Todd Gleason I do have some questions, Greg Johnson, about trade agreements with China. This president likes to make trade agreements, to make them on his own, to make them on paper. They are not signed off on by Congress generally speaking, which allows China to get out of them pretty quickly when administrations change. We’ve got much longer this time around than we did the last time Mr. Trump was in the presidency, and they didn’t fulfill but about 65% to 75% I believe of that trade agreement. Again, part of that is because we changed administrations, part of it is because there aren’t really enforcement mechanisms in play. Are we better off at least for the next two years if these agreements come to or are put in place and if there’s more than what the Chinese have already offered?
Greg Johnson I think it’s always good if the Chinese come in to buy. And if they buy more than what the supposedly agreement is, the more the better. My question is, we’ve never really seen the details of these agreements. We hear what the Trump administration’s interpretation of these trade agreements are, but we’ve never seen the actual written documents. So when they say they’re going to buy X number of millions of tons in this calendar year, there are some rumors that say the Chinese are under the impression that that’s a crop year, that they have another nine months to fulfill those purchases, not by the end of the year. So, and since we haven’t seen the documents, we don’t know. But I think the main point is China has proven that they don’t need to buy US soybeans. They can buy Brazilian soybeans much much cheaper. Brazil had a good crop this past year, so there’s beans available for a while. Our timeframe, our window is September, October, November. Hopefully the Chinese will continue to buy and we can get rid of a lot of our soybeans. So I think this is all good that the Chinese are buying. I guess my question and concern is we don’t know exactly how many bushels and what timeframe it will take for them to fulfill their obligation, if indeed they do decide to fulfill it.
Curt Kimmel Yeah, very well said. But too I think you got to remember China is going to do what China wants to do. They don’t give a rip about somebody telling them what to do. So we’ll see how that unfolds. But I think they might be a little bit more aggressive on picking up some beans from the fact if you look long term they’re pretty smart, we got a record monster El Nino going on right now and that affects that southern hemisphere production fairly well so I think they’ll step up here and get some purchases on the books because they have to line up shipping after the first of the year. But the fear would be is if the El Nino does not take effect and South America has cheaper beans they could cancel those after the first of the year.
Todd Gleason New contract highs were made in November beans this week. I’m wondering if you have a good handle on why that needed to take place. Is it about weather, is it about what’s happening in the Black Sea, the Middle East, all things combined? And even if so, soybeans are an August crop, not a July crop. And I’m not sure that soybean oil is that reflective of what happens with crude oil. So what are the driving forces behind this push in the marketplace for soybeans? More buyers than sellers basically?
Curt Kimmel Well that is a good… basically all you said here there’s a little concern, there’s a little fear in the market. The market likes to take a hold of something and go with it. But with the world dynamics going on, geopolitical, weather, I think it’s something to push the trade on one side in through here. On the bean oil side we got a lot of crushing plants coming online and there’s some commitments there, but I think it’s just all the factors jelling together here and we’ve just got the green line above the red line and we’re going to go with it.
Dave Chatterton To shade Curt, it’s about money flow. And I mean we can talk about fundamentals till we’re blue in the face, but essentially when funds or capital managers decide it’s time to be long agriculture it’s going to happen, right? But I think there’s two things that have changed in beans. One is the RFS and kind of memorializing or putting into law the changes that happen. Look at soybean crush margins right now. Anywhere in the Midwest if you’ve got a soybean plant, you’re probably making $3 plus per bushel running that crush plant, right? You’re going to run that thing as hard and as long as you possibly can to harvest those profits and that’s created a base of demand and a record demand for soybeans that we really were questioning a year ago or six months ago at this particular point. When you introduce the potential for Chinese demand, whether it be artificial or not, into that I think it’s a much different situation. You’re talking about a carryout in soybeans right now from the USDA on new crop that’s 310 million bushels. I mentioned that 920 million earlier, obviously we’ve got to do some rearranging of who buys from who to make that work. If they’re going to buy that much from the US, and I’m not guaranteeing that they will, but you know we’ve talked about them buying at a premium to US, but if you look at the offers here, FOB offers for Brazil, Argentina, and the US August forward, we are very competitive. And we should be, during our harvest period to Curt’s point, you know, September, October, November that’s when we should be selling beans to China and that’s where they’ve been buying beans. The question is how much are they going to buy beyond that and it’s an open question, Todd. It’s up for debate, but you cannot rule that out at the moment. And there’s a lot of other things going on around the world that, you know, that kind of play into this, but I think those are the main factors for soybeans.
Greg Johnson Dave and Curt both touched on the demand side with the funds and with China. I’ll just throw in one more thing on the supply side. USDA is using a 53 bushel national yield. Things are starting to get a little dry in places in Minnesota, and the Dakotas, and northwestern Iowa for example. So it wouldn’t take much to get that from 53 down to 52. One bushel an acre on 80-some million acres is 85 million bushels. And so now your carryout goes from 310 to a snug 240. Obviously we can’t get the carryout that low without some price rationing. So I think just the unknown about what size of a crop the market is trading. Are we still trading 53, or are traders already starting to pencil in 52?
Todd Gleason I will also make note that we are only 8 days away from August, so we’re really not that far away from the month in which a soybean crop can be made.
Dave Chatterton And just to make one point Todd, I totally agree with you historically and as we’ve been in this business, you know we all have some gray hair, August has been the month. But I think you also want to take into account that the trend of late in agriculture has been to plant beans earlier and earlier and earlier. A number of farmers are planting beans before corn and planting beans even in March. So the “new August” if you will is probably last half July and first half August in that viewpoint.
Todd Gleason Let’s turn your attention to corn at this point. I want to kind of get a feel from your clientele what they think about the corn crop they have now in the field. And Curt Kimmel, we’ll start with you. You can use normal Illinois or you can use some place else across the Midwest.
Curt Kimmel Well if you’re bullish you’re looking for somewhere that’s poor, if you’re bearish you’re looking somewhere that’s good. And the point is, it’s highly variable. And corn crops looking fairly decent. But as Greg kind of hinted on, we’ve got some issues in the north and northwest. They’ve missed some rains in through here and even in the east in through here. Surprisingly how fast things are drying out. Most are kind of comfortable, kind of still watching these, you can’t see it from the road, but there’s a lot of drowned out spots in some areas. There’s some areas that received a couple rains up to five, six inches. I know rain makes grain, but a lot of producers feel we’ve taken the top end off, but in Central Illinois, at least the ones I’m visiting with, feel they’ve got a comfortable average if not a little better yield.
Todd Gleason Greg Johnson, if you could lead us through your draw area and maybe closer to the Indiana side so we get an idea of what that looks like too.
Greg Johnson Yeah, right here in Champaign County the crop looks really good and farmers in Champaign County have been leaning into this rally the last couple of weeks and they’re confident that they’re going to have a crop to sell and so they’re making some sales. Not a lot, they were only 20% sold on new crop corn prior to this rally, so they’ve got a lot of corn left to sell, but to their credit I think they are selling new crop corn and beans, which tells me they’re confident that their crop looks pretty good. As Curt said, if you want to find a bad area in Illinois go down to Route 36 and across and then go on south from there, and then that northern part of Vermilion County in Illinois and then across into Indiana, way too wet. I mean they had some 12-inch rains in a week’s time and followed by another three or four-inch rain. So in the areas like that where the crop is not good the farmers are a little bit more reluctant to lean in and sell into this rally, but in a lot of areas in Champaign County for example farmers are going to probably have an average to above-average crop. It won’t be a record crop because there’s too many drowned out spots, but again you lose 4 acres in a pond, the other 76 acres of that 80-acre field are pretty good and they’re going to make up for that.
Dave Chatterton Yeah Todd, I think you know having done this for a long time. I mean and just in the last week you know coming up to this I’ve been as far south as Sullivan as far north as the Chicago suburbs and Yorkville just in the last week and you can literally drive around the same section and I can see corn that looks like total you know what and and just horrible to corn that looks great. So that variability degree makes it very challenging to arrive at okay where are we actually going to land on the total. But I think when I look back at the spring and what’s happened and I kind of widen my lens beyond Central Illinois. I’ll just bottom line it for you. In our internal models we’re using 205 for an Illinois corn yield, last year was 217. We’re using 60 in beans, last year was 65. Those are pretty significant declines. So we’re expecting nationally we’re probably looking more at, you know, the USDA is 183, we’re closer to 180. Where, you know, USDA is 53 on beans as Greg mentioned, we’re closer to 51. So, you know harvest will tell, but I think there’s some time to go here. But I think we did enough damage and we have enough holes and just enough challenges across the belt as a whole, from whether it was too wet for spring planting, whether it’s been too dry in western Nebraska, or pick where you’re at. The crop to me is a little bit subpar I think.
Todd Gleason In Illinois, do you have models for Iowa and Minnesota as well? Or do you have a rough estimate of what those might look like?
Dave Chatterton I don’t have those off the top of my head. I think you know in general our Iowa people have seen we’re very happy with their crop early on and they’ve come back to more of a let’s call it an average crop. If you’re in southern Minnesota, you’re pretty ecstatic about your crop at this particular point.
Todd Gleason Greg from the elevator perspective as you think about crop years. Soybeans went in early and they went in across the whole of the Midwest kind of together at the same time. Very much like we would normally do corn. There’s a two and a half week period over the last five to ten years where everything just sort of seems to suddenly get planted or at least half to 70% of it. Not the case for corn this year. It appears that that is a very long window, maybe six weeks. How much difference do you think that makes in yield at the end of the season?
Greg Johnson Well I’ll take soybeans first. As Dave said we planted soybeans before we planted corn the past several years, that trend has been increasing. And it doesn’t mean the beans will be harvested that much earlier, what it means is the beans have a longer growing season and can put more pods on. So it should mean a better yield assuming it rains in August. That’s the big variable when it comes to soybeans. Now corn, we planted corn late. The early guys that planted corn early, it seemed to withstand the water a lot better and they feel very good about those corn yields. The corn that got planted late and sat in water, yeah that’s going to be the yield, the corn that drags the yield down.
Todd Gleason So just for explanation for those who are listening who aren’t involved in agriculture. Once in a while if you’re driving down the road late in the fall and there are green soybeans around the light poles. That’s because they are light sensitive. They’re indeterminate and they are triggered by the length of the day. That’s why they have more time to put on pods if they’re planted earlier, they just have more time to put on because they won’t begin to senesce until they run out of daylight at the end of the year. So yield is one of the things they’ll be working on now. What should farmers think about with corn given everything else is equal. Kurt Kimmel I’m really considering you know here we are corn’s lagged behind soybeans as the rally goes. And it may still come but how should they deal with this?
Curt Kimmel Yeah that’s been a topic here lately here you got 12, 12.40 beans and corn is still below $5. So I would think corn can maybe have a little bit more giddy up here and narrow that gap a little bit. On corn okay these yield models too are going off the good to excellent category and that’s not 100%. As we get a little further along I think some of these handlers are going to be lowering some yield objectives as we move forward. Then plus two on corn we’re still dealing with last year’s crop, there’s ideas of they overestimated last year’s production. So I think corn’s got some support under it. There’s estimates we could go to $6, I don’t know about that, but I’d welcome it.
Todd Gleason On the last year’s crop and old crop supplies. There are both things that I hear. One is there’s a lot of corn in storage in the western part of the corn belt. Wondering whether that’s something you’ve heard and something we can factually tell or not very easily. And the other is will USDA in its final September figures which will be the last one really, and for soybeans it’s usually pretty good, for corn they’ve got it to the point where they say that number’s pretty good when we get to September. Will they change it at that point again this time around?
Dave Chatterton Well that’s the question. A lot of people think that they should as Curt mentioned. It sure seems like basis levels are pretty strong in the eastern corn belt especially. Most of that corn that is still left is in the western corn belt, we’re seeing ADM decatur bring in trains from west to east, other companies as well. So that tells me that basis levels are much stronger in the east than they are in the west and you’re seeing corn move from west to east. Will that mean the USDA will lower that final yield or increase the feed and residual, either one will lower the carryout. I would think the numbers would argue for that, but again you’re talking about the USDA and and maybe they will and maybe they won’t, I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.
Todd Gleason Supply and demand tables. We do come back to fundamentals despite the fact that you discussed a lot of the fund money coming in. The other side of the market really does try to drive what the final price is, particularly once you get to the basis level or the local level.
Dave Chatterton Yeah Todd, I mean you know the money flow has to be based on a fundamental or a story that’s created by those fundamentals. And so I hope the USDA is listening because to their point, to Greg’s point, you know corn is moving from west to east. USDA has had a record feed and residual number despite low animal numbers and they increased that feed and residual number last month to make their balance sheet work. It makes no sense. If those animals were in the west and they were eating that much corn, it wouldn’t be coming our way and the basis wouldn’t be depressed in my opinion. So I think the USDA is clearly probably maybe a couple hundred million too high on last year’s corn crop production. I think I’m hopeful that that gets adjusted in September. That flows over to our carryover and it doesn’t take a lot of yield loss here for this new crop to Curt’s point where all of a sudden you’re talking about a carryout in corn that’s 1.4, 1.3, 1.2, 1.1 potentially depending on, you know, how the weather finishes out and some different things. So I think the USDA has some explaining to do in terms of how they’re running their sheets. And their feed and residual tends to be their overflow but they need to true that up in my opinion in September. And I think it’s clear that they overestimated the yield last year and production in corn. And, you know, we can call trend whatever we want this year, but however we look at the situation, we’re in a situation where year-over-year corn stocks are going down and not just in the US but globally, okay? Corn demand is at a record level. In the US that’s led by exports. Ethanol, feed are right there neck and neck, but we’re in a situation where with the super El Nino brewing here this winter in South America, with what’s going on with the European drought, and they are not going to be, you know, exporting as much wheat, they’re going to need to import more feed grains including corn. All of a sudden, you know, this balance sheet could get I think tighter than people maybe anticipate and I think that’s part of this, you know, what are we going to do above this $5 level in corn and how will that play out. So we’ll watch it. I think we’ll have to wait and drag our feet with the USDA, but um again I think as a different outlook. We often talk about grain marketing in our shop in terms of being defensive or offensive. And defensive, you’re a price taker, your margins are not that great, you’re trying to get through the next year and stay in the black. I think we might be transitioning to a more offensive time period in terms of marketing and particularly for corn.
Todd Gleason Cue the fire horse?
Curt Kimmel You bet. 60 year cycle fire horse, suddenly it’s all jelling together here. We got a long, long marketing year in front of us, but yeah there’s just some geopolitical, weather around the world, there’s no better time to be excited and watching the grain market.
Todd Gleason You’ve been listening to this. Producers are going to call you and say hey what should we do with corn. They’re already doing that. They made new crop sales. I’m certain they’re pretty happy about those at this time like the $11 cash sales for soybeans. They might not be happy in two weeks. But we’ll see how that goes.
Greg Johnson Yeah. I remind farmers that December corn was 4.20 something on June 30th. Just three weeks ago. Okay so we know we can go that low. Uh we’ve made the case today I think that corn could be 5.20. So you’ve got a 4.20 to 5.20 range, the midpoint is 4.70. We’re at 4.85 today. A little bit better than average, so maybe we don’t get real excited about selling corn today, but at some point in time I think we do. Whether that’s $5 or 5.20 or maybe one sale at $5, another sale at 5.20, we still have the potential to go back down if it rains in August and if China doesn’t show up. On the other hand if they do, I mean 5.20 is very doable. So you know it kind of comes back to where can I make money and also what percentage do I have sold. Most farmers that I know of don’t have more than 20, 25% sold. So they can make some sales and still hope this market goes higher.
Todd Gleason We’ll give each of you just a moment to think about your final word for our commodity week program for the day. However, we do have an emeritus Commodity Week panelist with us. Wayne Nelson now joins us. Hi Wayne, you’ve been listening throughout this discussion. Any sage advice from you or other things that you’d like to mention for the day?
Wayne Nelson Well I think all the guys have done a great job. I mean they’ve talked about all the different things and like that and wow, isn’t it exciting that we’re talking about an up market rather than we missed it. I mean you know, and like I say, what they priced initially was a good start and look, you want your last sale to be your best sale. So you know we’re all going at it like that and I think it’s a great opportunity, you know, to market some corn here a little more here and keep going just like they all said. I’m just so excited to be here and hear all the enthusiasm for it and with all my old friends it’s just a really lot of fun for me.
Todd Gleason Let’s get a final word from each of you now. We’ll start with Dave Chatterton. You are with Strategic Farm Marketing here in Champaign County. Your final word for the day?
Dave Chatterton Well like Wayne, I, you know, to echo his sentiments it’s great to be here with him, it’s great to be here with you guys and I think it can be a little bit more exciting or a little bit funner time period going forward. I think we’re potentially setting up for that transition phase and it has a number of different legs. I think it starts with global grain stocks that are coming down year over year. I think it goes to record demand for, you know, for both corn and soybeans globally. I think you throw in the EU drought, meaning they have less wheat to export, they have to import more corn. I think you look at the Russian-Ukrainian war and it’s limiting, particularly Russian wheat exports at the time of year when they’re harvesting and they should be very high. You look at the US-Iranian conflict which now has two fronts, you know, the Red Sea and the Strait of Hormuz. Not necessarily grain-centric, but we’ve got a good tie between the grain and the energy markets here and what they do and certainly has a fertilizer knock on as well. I think you throw in this potential Chinese demand that we think is coming or at least think partially is coming, challenges to US crop yields, South American Super El Nino which I don’t even know if I know what that is, but I know that El Ninos are negative to yields in central and northeast Brazil. And I think we have commodity funds that are in a kind of a neutral position here. They spent a lot of June selling, now they’re trying to get caught back up and decide if they want to be long again. But we have a kind of a setup that becomes like I said a little bit more offensive in terms of marketing. It doesn’t mean sell anything and to Greg’s, you know, his comment that he’s 20% sold, our guys are more like 40% sold, but we’re tapping the brakes just a little bit here, but that doesn’t mean don’t reward the market and particularly if you need to move at harvest. We’ve seen some local basis levels that are fairly impressive and can work for things that need to move off the farm at harvest. So there’s some opportunities out there. Just pay attention, have a plan, have some offers in front of the market and hopefully it’s hopefully we’re going to get this fuse lit.
Todd Gleason Greg Johnson, is with TGM. Your final word?
Greg Johnson Farmers are continually asking about price and price prediction, I would just caution them to focus on another P, and that’s profitability. You know, if you can make money at these prices, why not get up to half your crop locked in? If you want to get more aggressive than that then there are strategies using the options market to protect the downside while still giving yourself some upside. But it’s going to be extremely hard to predict the price, but I would say just reward these rallies. $5 corn, $12 beans, I think we can make money at those levels.
Todd Gleason And Curt Kimmel from agmarket.net.
Curt Kimmel Thanks. Pretty well said Dave and Greg. You guys did a great job summarizing things up there. From a personal point of view, it’s the year of the fire horse and I’ve chosen to retire here at the end of the month, July 31st, and going to greatly miss you guys all. It’s been a great run in through here. I’ve had an excellent career in it. What better time to get away and let the market go higher since I feel like I’ve been standing in front of it. So I appreciate the opportunity being involved with all you guys and and all the listeners out there, it’s been a great conversation. I do have a small gift for Dave though… we’ve had a ton of fun. I wish we could tell all the stories and everything. But my guess my last words would be giddy up.
Todd Gleason There we go. Giddy up. Your last words you and I trained both under Dan Zwicker. I have been so privileged to work with you and with Dan over the years and to share some background with you and thank you for all the service that you’ve given to the radio station, to commodity week, to willag.org, and to all of the clients and listeners. We do appreciate it. That of course is Curt Kimmel, he is with agmarket.net. We’ll have him on one last time in his official capacity on Monday. Be sure to tune in. I’m University of Illinois Extension’s Todd Gleason.