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All Over The Board · Professional Ag Marketing Podcast

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Professional Ag Marketing Podcast.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: If you want a deep dive into the ag markets and risk management strategies, your search is over.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: Come here after every Friday to get your weekly commodity recap.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: Trading commodity futures and options involves substantial risk of loss and is not suitable for all investors.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: This is your host, Mike Minor.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: Let's get started.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: Today is April 17th.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: I've got Jeff with us here today.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: How's it going, Jeff?
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: Good afternoon, Mike.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_01: Going well.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: Good.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: Well, we're gonna cover a massive amount of topics today.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: Just gonna kind of do a round table.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: Kind of hard to pick from, isn't it?
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, it is.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: There's nothing over that that'd kind of be the summary for me for the week.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: There was nothing overwhelmingly um massive trade news-wise or weather-wise.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: Nothing controlled the narrative too much on these markets.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: It was a little of this, a little of that, and uh a lot of market movement, but not a lot of market moving headlines, so to say.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_01: So maybe let's start with the with that topic, maybe Mike.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_01: And so as it sits today in our minds, you've got China um continued to be the uh black sheep of the family, if you will, right?
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_01: And we continue to beat on her pretty bad um and nowhere's close to talking about a trade deal.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: No, the news there this week was that China said that they would talk or begin talks with the US if the US basically shows respect.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um Okay.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: That's one way to start.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_01: Did we do that, Mike?
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_01: I yeah, all right.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: We'll go to the next thing here.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: They had named a point person, and then they uh had some different uh topics on Taiwan as well, some things that they had requested.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: So that was kind of where they sat up.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um other than that, here, you know, like crude oil popped on trade news pretty hard at the end of this week.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, we're up ten bucks or so from the lows, a little bit of a trade deal with Europe uh kind of situated, so that was one thing.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: And then uh, you know, some other things, Iran sanctions there as well.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_01: So in general, from an economic perspective, ending the week, um, you know, all those equities pretty much went sideways, right?
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um today.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_01: And so you're I think you're leaving the week with some, you know, I'm gonna call it good news compared to maybe where we were um most of last week, right?
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_01: As far as you know, are we going into recession?
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_01: Aren't we?
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_01: I know some of those estimates kind of spiked here um yesterday after uh Trump put the additional tariffs back on China.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um you know, and I think from where our heads at, you know, on that topic is it it just it's I don't want to say it doesn't matter, but uh you know we've got high enough tariffs going both directions there that uh it's gonna be very difficult for us to ship much of agriculture products.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_01: Let alone anything.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_01: I mean that's for the markets we care about.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_01: We're just saying that for now, you're not gonna you're not gonna move stuff there.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe you're gonna move it through the back doors, um, like in pork's uh standpoint, you know, if we can shove from through Vietnam or Mexico or whatever routes, but yeah, I'd say we're kind of done with China as far as any demand there, which is obviously very concerning from the a little bit, I guess a little bit concerning from pork standpoint.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_01: Uh my mind very concerning for soybeans long term, but that's you know, tomorrow's problem, I guess.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_01: But so recession or not recession, like I said, that spiked here a little bit towards the end of the week, but um overall I'd probably call that a win, wouldn't you, Mike?
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, we're we're gonna end the week kind of sideways on most of these equities.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: The equities I think are kind of rounding off a little bit of a top here, so we'll see if that continues in a downward or a down channel or downtrend, whatever you want to call that.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: So that'll be interesting to watch going forward.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: However, kind of the big news this week was we had a massive divergence between the Dow Jones and the SP 500, some blue check problems there.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um United Healthcare was kind of the big dog in the room.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: They had an unexpected miss there for their earnings.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: So uh the Dow Jones took a really big hit, and then the SP 500 futures actually were trading green today.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: So that was kind of the big uh divergence there.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: That was a big enough one, that was kind of a historic ordeal to have those two.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that doesn't happen very often.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: No, to have those two completely separate from one another is is pretty odd.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: So that uh uh for example, that'd be like the biggest since 1954.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so that's that was something kind of interesting to end uh end the week, anyways.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: But from just if you took all the all of the markets, put them in a bundle, I mean, crude was up, uh, the stock market was kind of back up, um corn, soybeans, even hogs and cattle, I mean, it was all a little bit more green this week.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: They at least seemed to find a bottom last week after the rough week.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: Uh just a little bit more money flow back into some of these commodities and investments.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_01: Well, and and you talk about the divergence between between the equities, Mike, um, but I would say on especially on the livestock side of things, we had a divergence between, you know, our best example, of course, is is cattle.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_01: That thing was absolutely hooked up with the equities um, you know, the past two weeks, I would dare argue.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_01: And then maybe starting here Tuesday or Wednesday of I guess it's only Thursday, so yeah, Tuesday of this week, the cattle were able to continue some very impressive rallies, um, even though you know some of those days we had some lower equities.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_01: And um the same can be said with the hogs, um, they seem to really be divorced from the outside markets here this week, and like you said, being able to attract some of that outside money and to actually close a very impressive week, actually, both of those markets.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, really nice finish.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, I would say cattle-wise, what do you think about the cash activity towards the end of the week?
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's appropriate.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not sure if we're completely done yet today.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, I think we're gonna be what a good three dollars higher at least here in a lot about uh 212 type money.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um I think there'll be some 213 that gets traded.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: Change in direction, right?
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_00: I mean it's been taking a little bit off.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_01: And I think, you know, and unfortunately in that marketplace, the futures can affect the cash market, right?
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_01: And that's uh that's different, I would dare say, from um the hogs for sure, and and maybe somewhat the grains, although it's very true in the grains, of course.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_01: It just seems like uh um the cattle market can really get uh divorced from its fundamentals like we saw and and be hooked up with outside markets and then that play into the cash trade.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_01: So I I don't know that uh on their own merit that they had to see as big a setback as what we saw on the cash market, but you gotta be happy with what's going on over in that front, um, putting some pretty big gains in the cash, putting some big gains on the futures.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_01: The futures really got caught right up to where the cash market is, especially in the south.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so no positive basis, which that hasn't happened very often.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_01: I shouldn't say no, there's a couple dollar positive basis there yet, but that has not happened very often in that cattle market.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_01: So futures fairly optimistic that we're gonna hold this uh 210 plus type cash here at least for the next couple weeks.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: I want to bounce back to the grain side here.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: Uh one of the bigger things I think uh just market activity-wise and what matters to the markets right now, uh other than trade, tariff news, money flow back into these markets a little bit, uh, it would just be planning progress going forward.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_00: What's your take on uh progress so far, Jeff?
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: East versus west.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: How do you think things are tracking right now for the U.S.?
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so we're making a ton of progress in the West.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so if we're if you guys are listening to this podcast and you're getting a bunch of acres in, you know, I think you need to understand that's not really the the situation across the entire Corn Belt.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um, although, you know, we were we were a few of us were out into Illinois, um, even into southern Illinois uh early this week, Mike, and there was a lot of activity, a lot of business getting done um out that far.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_01: But then I think as you start to continue to go east um from that central, yes, and south from that central Illinois, um it changes in a hurry, don't it?
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_01: And we were starting to see some wetter spots um when we were down that way, but um yeah, you keep going from there.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_01: Obviously, you've got some pretty big rains that have taken place, and some really big rains that are supposed to move in yet this weekend, right?
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_01: So um we're gonna the a little bit that's the area that uh you know there's two different tales to be told, but we put a lot of corn in and a lot more corn, I think, is gonna go in here this weekend.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_01: Uh all of Iowa, Minnesota, um, you know, Wisconsin, eastern Minnesota's gonna pick up some rain here, so that'll shut them out.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_01: But I mean, I don't know if we'll be ahead of schedule on the uh planting progress, Mike.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_01: I haven't studied that far ahead as you think of about what goes into next week, but um, yeah, I I I think we're getting a lot of work done for sure.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_00: I think there is too.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think the market will probably care about planning progress, at least until we have uh May uh partially behind us, it seems like, to get the market excited at all about late planning.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: It really takes until well into May to get that to happen.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously, if we get a ton planted by the end uh end of April here, that could get traded a little bit, but no real estimates yet for uh for this next Monday's uh report there after this long weekend going into uh no trade tomorrow on Friday because of the holiday.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: But any final thoughts for our listeners here today?
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you know, building on the corn discussion, Mike, I don't know if I can remember very many times.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe maybe I can't come up with a like year where we have such a bullish um old crop fundamentals and that demand staying strong and the ending stocks continuing to get tighter and tighter.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_01: I mean that's that's five plus dollar corn bullish on the old crop, I would dare say, and then so bearish on new crop as far as how many acres we're gonna put out there.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: A big divergence from those two crop years from another.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_01: What I'm gonna be looking at a bit are, you know, where's the conversation taking us?
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_01: Are we focused more on old crop demand or are we gonna be focused more on new crop acres?
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_01: And I think you're probably right that that discussion probably doesn't change a ton going into next week, but I think it's something to be paying attention to as to which way the the directions and and the winds are blowing it.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that spread July corn futures to December corn futures is back to only 24 cents.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: So we're approaching that area of i it gets pretty tight.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, at one point here uh just a few weeks ago, really the beginning of April, the July contract was only about ten cents higher than December.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: So for as big of a difference as we've seen in those two fundamentals between this year and next year, uh, for the price only to be 10 cents higher up front here is is pretty tight.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: So something I've been watching really closely has been that spread, Jeff.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_01: Sounds good, Mike.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I guess we'll see what next week has in store for us.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: All right, we'll do.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for your time, everybody.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: Happy Easter here, and let us know how your planning is going in your area.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: And thank you to all our listeners.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: Please reach out to us at professionaleggmarketing.com.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_00: Check out our other podcast as well, Professional Egg Marketing, that's released every Friday.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: Trading commodity futures and options involves substantial risk of loss and is not suitable for all investors.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: See you next time.