What are the characteristics Of a house clearing trades that would make you trust them?

[parsley]

Some farmers mistrust commodity trading, and
increasingly, with good reason. But I would like
to ask a farmer like Kyle K. or Wilagro or
mustard:
1. What should be fixed?
2. How?
If the hole of distrust is plugged, would they
trade? It's important.

I'll begin. I would like to see a trading centre that
uses accounting practices that iare what i call
decent... No disguising numbers, or changing
year ends or or inventory to make some two bit
CEO look sound . No misleading language no
parceling a financial picture into parts that
become difficult to assemble No meeting with
committees to wash the facts and the view or
horizon before they are presented to a BofD.
These days, a Financial report is an overt war. A
clear, honest financial report would resonate
throughout the world and court trades. Your turn.
What would make you trust ? Pars

[TOM4CWB]

Parsley,

Take a look at 'Clear' in Ausie land.

They have a very secure system that works well.

[parsley]

Tom, what improvement or revision could
enhance the trust factor in trading, that would
reduce the distrust factor that is systemic in the
farm community? Pars.

[parsley]

ie: PayPal made eBay flourish, IMHO pars

[wd9]

A very effective clearing house indeed!

Weren't the barley growers funding a clearing house project? Carman Reed was consulting on that project.

[parsley]

Wd, What would make farmers flock to a trading
house with confidence? Personnel? Location?
Regulation? Information? Payment security?

[farmaholic]

Beer and pretzels. Sorry parsley--I feel festive tonight... getting close to Christmas. I guess if I have nothing intelligent to say I shouldn't say anything!!

[pgluca]

Commodity Trading Account insurance, similar to deposit insurance, so you won't loose your margin account.

[pgluca]

Maybe that was a stupid suggestion, the clearing house is usually a separate entity from the trading firm I imagine, for conflict reasons.

[TOM4CWB]

Parsley,

Google it!

Here is what is posted today on:

https://www.cleargrain.com.au/

829,142mt wanted by buyers today;

184,209mt offered by sellers today;

15,341mt traded today for $3,251,651;

827,742mt traded in total;

121,262mt traded this harvest.

You’re in control and we help you stay there

"Grain marketing is easy at the Clear Grain Exchange. It’s a unique and innovative marketplace for trading wheat, malt barley, feed barley, canola, sorghum, chickpeas and peas. Clear Grain Exchange offers buyers and sellers of grain an online exchange environment to transact business that is independent and secure, with automatic contract generation and settlement with very fast payments."

"Clear News & Updates

Clear Grain Exchange Increases Again

December 08, 2011

Clear Grain Exchange has increased again year on year making it the 4th consecutive performance increases since inception.

•Offers are up 369% on 2010 to same date last year (marketing year on year).

•Trades are also up 236% times in the same period (marketing year on year).

•Over 8000 growers have now used the Clear Grain Exchange and have traded over 800,000 tonnes of grain.

•Total trade equates to $171,000,000.000 AUD.

•140 registered buyers have now bought over 800,000 tonnes.

The 140 listed buyers come from a diverse backgrounds and are broken into 5 different groups:

-Australian Bulk Exporters
-Container Exporter
-Domestic Processors
-Domestic Trader
-International Bulk Exporter

Contact 1 800 000 410 to discuss selling grain on the Clear Grain Exchange."


"Smartest Bid Alert System in Australia

November 23, 2011

The Bid Alert System on the Clear Grain Exchange provides you smart and intelligent information when you need it.
•
Trade Alerts let you know what is selling and at what price are available via SMS.

•
Bid Alerts let you know what price buyers are prepared to pay via SMS.


Your mobile phone number the Clear Bid Alert system is using comes directly from your NGR information.

Trades Alerts happen in real time when a trade occurs on the Clear Grain Exchange. Trades alerts only target you if you've got the same grain in warehouse.

Bid alerts start at 1.30pm and will notify you of the highest bid entered into the Clear Grain Exchange for your warehoused grain. If a superior bid is entered into the Clear Grain Exchange by the next time marker, you will be notifed again via another bid alert. The specific time markers are 2.30, 3.30, 4.30, 5.30 EST. This aims to keep you abreast of any price rises occuring throughout the day.

If the price does not move higher throughout the day you won't get another text message after 1.30pm.

The bid alerts are also compared against the prices collected from Profarmer Grain's Daily Price Service. If the bid is deemed outside the tollerance against the Profarmer Grain's Daily Indicative Best, you won't recieve a text message. This ensures you only receive text messages when the bids are competitive.

You can of course turn the messages off if you don't want to receive them from the settings page within your account. You can also only have 1 mobile listed per account.

You must have activated a Clear Grain Exchange account to receive text messages."

"Secure marketplace for Chickpeas now on Clear Grain Exchange

November 09, 2011

Clear Grain Exchange has announced the addition of Chickpeas to the list of tradable commodities on its secure on-line trading platform.

“The addition of Chickpeas and other pulses provides growers with more payment security and a convenient way to market while giving buyers better access to the commodity” said Pat O’Shannassy, General Manager of Australian Agribusiness for NZX Limited*.

Marketing pulses can be difficult for both growers and buyers in terms of market access and payment security, which inhibits the growth of these commodities.
Mr O’Shannassy said “Our focus has been to deliver growers a secure market place with fast payments for their product.
Growers are provided with an easy and convenient way to find buyers, while the Clear Grain Exchange gives buyers improved access to more growers – the outcome is a win-win for both sides”.

"Not getting paid for a season’s crop is devastating for a farm business. Fortunately this is now completely avoidable with the Clear Grain Exchange Secure Payment Mechanism” Mr O’Shannassy said.

Trading on the Clear Grain Exchange means growers do not lose Title to their grain until the payment is received. Payments are received by [growers] within 7 business days.

Well known crop forecaster, Gavin Warburton from Australian Crop Forecasters, is expecting Australia to produce around 1.7mmt of Pulses this harvest including approximately 550kt of Chickpeas.

Clear Grain Exchange has traded over 700,000 warehoused tonnes with an average of 6 business days and has over 140 listed buyers.

Clear Grain Exchange also has over 16,000 listed growers and has performed over 9000 successful trades since 2008 worth $A160m."

NO NEED to re-invent the Wheel Parsley!

Some one has a great wheel working perfectly in Australia. The CWB needs to link into this chain... and watch the business develop and grow!

Merry Christmas!

[parsley]

The biggest hurdle Tom, what I hear, is one of
trust.

Whether we are going to have institutions come
in or we create them : Brokerage houses.
Clearing houses, Commodity exchanges.
Currency exchanges etc., isn't the goal to
actually USE them?

Alberta Barley Growers created a clearing house.
Post the webage, will you, Tom. I must have
missed it. You posted Australia!

Cott bare-boned a brokerage. He had few
responses. Nobody understands ? Didnt trust ?
Don't care? Prefer a Hong Kong brokerage?

Is ICE credible? If not, why? Pars

[pgluca]

ICE has a problem but It is more getting a critical mass than trust or credibility. The western barley futures once they got thinly traded basically just disappered. We may have too many exchanges trying to trade wheat. We will know a lot better next winter.

[parsley]

Pgluca, isn't trust critical to attracting mass?
Pars

[bduke]

Parsley... Your questions regarding understanding and mistrusting equate to risk... in
my mind.

Mf Global has done a great disservice to grain pricing and payments confidence.

However, the fallout should be improved security and stronger guidelines regarding
other people's money.

I worry that the Exchanges have become huge businesses, rather than forums for price
discovery, and they tend to protect their proprietary interest first.

The concept of having a fee based contingency fund from trading has been around for
a while. The interest has grown since the Canada Grain Commission has greatly
reduced its responsibility for ensuring adequate bonding, and no longer guarantees
wholeness.

Clearing trades balances longs and shorts, buyers and sellers but doesn't ensure
payment without some type of insurance.

IMHO clearing normally excludes specs which move markets much quicker than
buyers when price have upward pressure, and sellers when prices have downward
pressure.

Specs also allow moving product for cash purposes while protecting loss of
opportunity.

Problem with developing contracts is building volumes... both trades and specs..
needed for liquidity.

Cottonpicken's idea of the CWB becoming a huge brokerage/clearing house/security is
very sound IMHO. I spoke about the culture yesterday.

The Allan Johnstons etc. could easily be the customer interfaces, the Brokerage could
secure payments... a contingency fund for trades, Export Development Canada for
exports.

Freight could be brokered.. unit trains ...BTrains.. or wheelbarrows.

This business could deal in fuel, precious metals, fertilizers or holiday excursions....
whatever.

Bottom line is to secure payments to all, and to have a competitive broadly used
medium.

Farming is very risky, and very expensive... managing risk is imperative.

Without a market that is trustworthy, liquid, customer focussed, and active we will be
accepting purchaser friendly contracts, one sided demands from RR's, and continue to
be vulnerable buyer bullying as we have in malt barley.

Perhaps the WBG etc. have better ideas, but bly has been a tough contract to trade
with reasonable volume. After Aug. 01 this may change... but we have many, many
products that need better price discovery and payment security in my opinion.

I could be wrong... Cheers... Bill

[TOM4CWB]

Parsley,

You can lead a horse to water but you cannot make it drink.

Risk Management costs $$$.

If folks choose to take the risk... reap the rewards... that is their choice.

Logical Rational and Reasonable.

There are always speed bumps... MF being one of them. We get over it... move on and count it as a cost of doing business.

Losses caused by the CWB are 1000's of times greater than the MF problem for us.

A state of mind... risk management tools cost and have risk in them themselves.

Clear in Aussieland has a great platform. If there is a need... the tools will migrate to western Canada.

A great opportunity for the CWB to offer stability and handle diverse crops... would be to be the agent for a Clear system in Canada.