Last night I was floating in the giant, still lake that runs alongside Spadina Crescent in Saskatoon. I noticed that the water reflected a shiny, emerald green light, and that I could see all the way down to the sandy bottom. And all seemed peaceful, beautiful, serene, and I floated calmly and happily.
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Then I remembered that I had been told that lakes go still and shine with a green light just before a tornado strikes. I lifted my head from the water, looked out into the still lake, and saw a dozen huge, writhing tornado stems spinning towards me. I began swimming desperately to shore – safety seemed so far away . . .
Then my two-and-a-half-year-old’s voice from down the hallway awoke me, I stumbled there to settle her, and the dream faded, leaving me with nothing other than a bit of lingering anxiety and a cold sweat – and a demand to “put Dora on!” (Why was I dreaming of Saskatoon? Was it because the Crop Production Show is on? Everyone I spoke to Monday seemed to be there. And why did I dream there was a lake in S’toon, rather than a river? The answer, my friends, is known only to Morpheus.
If I wanted to be superstitious, I would interpret the still lake in this dream as the situation of the grain markets in the day before the USDA report strikes tomorrow, and the tornadoes the impact on the markets of surprising USDA numbers.
The ag markets seem a little flat today, and that’s common right before a report comes out. Everything could change n the next 15 minutes and make me look like an idiot for saying this, but everything tends to go into a holding pattern before important numbers are issued.
Wheat, oats, corn, canola are all moving around a bit, but not in a big way. Soybeans today is selling off, but that’s just really a response to overboughtness.
None of this might change much tomorrow if all the numbers come out as expected. But things could go wild if anything confounds expectations in either a bullish or bearish direction. That sounds like an obvious thing to say, but there are lots of reports the market just shrugs off, and some times of the year when the trade tends to ignore USDA reports. That time is not now. The January report can be a game-changer for the ags, and I’ve seen the market reverse months-long trends the second it is issued and keep with the new direction for months.
So keep a keen eye out for tomorrow’s report, because it could be explosive.
I wish I could figure out some way to trade on my dream, which I am taking as a direct supernatural message from the markets that something big and violent is going to happen tomorrow in the reports. I just can’t figure out if that violence is going to be to the bullish or bearish side . . .
Perhaps I could trade an agricultural volatility index, or buy a cheap ag volatility call option . . .
Do such things exist? Perhaps I could dream one up.
