Barley growers can expect “fabulous prices” in the millennium, market analyst Don Bousquet told the GrainWorld market outlook conference.
He sees it in the moons: the blue moon price signal, that is.
Only one year out of 40 has two blue-moon months. This year, January and March each have blue moons, which means two full moons in one month.
Feed grain markets rally in the year following eight out of 10 blue-moon signal years, said Bousquet.
He told farmers and traders the lunar event exacts a different pull on the earth’s surface, and triggers a change in weather patterns.
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Bousquet noted it’s also a La Nina year, a weather pattern that has often hurt corn production, the dominant world feed grain.
Four key market cycles converge in 2000, said Bousquet. The cycles are used in technical analysis of markets, a technique that looks at past price movement to predict future price movement using computer-generated charts.
Current low feed grain prices do not account for the possibility of a weather problem, said Bousquet, noting American corn growers have gone an “unprecedented” 11 years without production problems.
But first, he said feed grain markets will hit new lows.
“I haven’t seen a bearish market psychology like this since 1985-86,” he said.
“I have actually had analysts who were sober tell me prices could fall to zero.”
After new-corn corn prices rally to $2.40 to $2.50 per bushel (U.S.), harvest prices will slump below $2 per bu.
“That will be the low,” said Bousquet.
At the Winnipeg Commodity Exchange, he expects harvest lows of $110 to $115 per tonne in barley futures.
Canadian Wheat Board analyst Peter Watts said he expects feed barley export prices for 1999-2000 to be similar to this year’s low returns.
