Tag Archives Commodities

Wendy and Ralph are crying, but I don’t know what it means to you. Yet. I hope to now what it means soon, as I go through another round of interviewing commodities experts about the bigger issues of the commodities complex, which is what underlies the heady levels crop prices are floating at these days. […] Read more

Dear reader, you probably don’t waste much time thinking of the plight of poor, ink-stained scribblers like me, but let me share one weekly sadness with you. Every week I interview quite a few fascinating, insightful people about important topics, and then use about 10 percent of what they told me. That’s all the room […] Read more

For weeks the crop markets have been bullish as various North American and world crop conditions have lent fundamental support to firmer crop prices. And as investment money has poured back into the ags, people have become bullish on technical grounds too. Once the funds start driving prices higher, then tend to do it for […] Read more

Here are some pretty pictures from today’s markets to warm you soul. The U.S. Fed announced yesterday that it really is going to do a big QE2, not a little one, and that’s got everyone piling into commodities today as an inflation hedge, and on the assumption that this QE is going to boost the […] Read more

I almost spat out my coffee yesterday when I saw Gary Condit on TV again. Actually, I did spit out my coffee when he came on my TV at home, but it was because my 19-month-old ran up and headbutted me in the midsection at that moment, rather than because of the shock of his […] Read more

As we all get our Lady Gaga outfits ready for Hallowe’en trick-or-treating on Sunday night, the words of market analyst Dennis Smith will leave producers feeling both warm, and scared. That’s a pretty hallowe’eny feeling, because it’s a festival that’s both fun and frightening. Unfortunately for most farmers, Smith’s views will not equally share out […] Read more

Sometimes this seems a crazy world to me. Especially when it comes to QE2. In fact, when it comes to both QE2s. The first bit of craziness is with Canadian children’s lack of education about that good and noble woman that our true loyalty is rightly bound to as citizens: QE2. Or, Queen Elizabeth II, […] Read more

In the past decade I’ve spent a lot of time boosting my education in, and understanding of, risk management. Not only is it something I cover on a daily basis, but it’s also something that I simply find intellectually stimulating and applicable to daily life – in almost every way. In fact, at lunch today […] Read more

“Mind the Gap” That was a common robotic message I heard many, many times in the 1970s and 1980s, when I was young and apparently wealthy enough to often visit London, England, something I am no longer able to do. It’s the message repeatedly played in Underground stations to warn passengers to make sure to […] Read more

Some producers experienced a great deflating feeling last Friday when the ag commodity markets – including canola prices –  shot through the roof, but their local elevator’s price didn’t budge. As suddenly as the futures markets moved up, basis levels weakened. That’s what happens when the elevators don’t need to chase the crop. At harvest […] Read more