zero basis

[bucket]

Charliep

So farmers pay to get their product elevated and freighted to the west coast. And they receive a non converted price off mpls.

Your mantra is the market is always right. The basis has dropped from minus 2 bucks a bushel to zero. That should be an indicator the graincos want wheat.

No one is taking delivery.

You are right you are not missing anything because it's not your money disappearing into thin air

Keep talking eventually you will get that board seat for defending the industry.

[bucket]

Marketing reps are calling about a zero basis. I tell them nope off mpls pricing it's a minus 75 cents a bushel.

They argue for a awhile until I walk them thru the calculation.

If they keep arguing I ask if they want to discuss Vancouver selling prices backed off to the prairies.

They have another call to answer.

Why do farmers put up with this shit?

[charliep]

Delivery is a different thing. The issue going and the learning is the need for better coordination. Matching logistics with sales at port. Still isn't happening. Railways spotting cars at locations with inventory that isn't matched with what is needed. The supply chain doesn't communicate very well. I guess your answer bucket is more regulation/government involvement. Not sure I agree.

Lots of discussion on the issues you raise. Know who your friends are. Know your partners you can cooperate with. Try not to put a knife in their backs. Not fun when your friends are more likely to stab you than your enemies.

[foragefarmer]

Charlie

Boy your sure good at making excuses for a
for a disfunctional Canadian wheat market. It's very tiresome. Very easy to give advise when nothings at stake.

[bucket]

Government involvement is laughable at best. They couldn't issue fines even with an OIC and legislation.

As far as stabbing anyone in the back.

All I have done is presented facts.

If they want another farmer to take advantage of - fine. The graincos are the ones with the knives.

[wmoebis]

Charlie can you clarify! Railways spotting cars at locations with inventory that isn't matched with what is needed.

Do they railways tell the grain Co's where they are going to spot cars or does the grain Co's tell the RR where they want cars?

No coordination between stocks in store and cars ordered/spotted?

[bucket]

Delivery is everything. I thought with your mantra about the market always being right a zero basis would encourage deliveries.

It's still a drop from minus 2 bucks a bushel to minus 75 cents a bushel.

[charliep]

My understanding is the railways are the one who make decisions about where they spot cars. Their business/assets after all. One of the challenges of only basing performance on one measure - volume.

[foragefarmer]

Charlie

You Stated;

"Matching logistics with sales at port. Still isn't happening. Railways spotting cars at locations with inventory that isn't matched with what is needed"

So industry has taken a step backwards compared to what was in place just a couple of years ago. Wheat going to port to fill vessels waiting for it.

How do you explain that? You were one of the biggest champions, on here of this new marketing system that we as farmers were going to be blessed with. Please enlighten me on how good things really are with this current wheat marketing system that western Canadian farmers hare having to deal with? Who is cordinating wheat movement?

[boarderbloke]

Charliep, if those pricing deceptions were taking place in a grocery store, or a pharmacy or a lumberyard the federal government's dept. of consumer affairs would be cracking down so hard on those stores, they may very well be closed until they were prepared to be transparent with their price advertising. As well there would be plenty of investigative journalists(ie W5, Fifth estate) doing stories on the deception.
Sure all that matters is the "net" price, but lately you've been posting hard and heavy about watching basis and using basis as the main signal in selling stored grain. Basis without exchange included is a deception and not the true amount of Basis.
I didn't care much for the CWB, I did embrace the fixed price options the last years it was available, when they decided to buy ships the gig was up with me. But I'll have to say that the way they posted prices with currency exchange included was very transparent.

Charliep, aren't you in favor of clear, transparent pricing, including currency exchange? What's so difficult about that, it's not like the graincos don't have computers that can help them post their prices. Why are graincos hiding the currency exchange? Could it be that hiding the exchange goes directly to their bottom line?

[fjlip]

That is the tail waging the dog! RR should have ZERO to say where cars are spotted. Cars need to go where they are needed,. dictated by grain Co's. Talk about screwed up, ass backwards, f*ucked up system!!!
"God dam the CPR" ...Saint Sammy.

[bucket]

All I know is that I am just as frustrated looking at prices as I was when the cwb was in place.

Charliep just admitted Vancouver price is 10 bucks a bushel.


And not one farm group is making noise. Not even the NFU is saying we told you so.

[fjlip]

boarder, but if CAD is ever higher than USD, just watch them use that excuse to smash our prices further down!

[farmaholic]

A ****ing blind man could see this coming.... Too bad the stupid people in charge didn't....

But on the topic of basis, given "PORT PRICE" what do you consider a fair basis?

[charliep]

foragefarmer - I will let you fight history with people on this site. I was a presentation with a friend I respect a lot and he indicated that system would have performed far under single desk. Having grain companies deal directly with railways was more effective than adding a third partner in the form of the single desk. Will get beaten up on but I highlight to everyone including my own management that Canada took in record deliveries and record exports in 2013/14. Things were not perfect and there are lessons to learned but the system performed better than what it would have in the past. To highlight, wheat exports exceeded all levels of the past 20 years. Canola exports were a record.

boarderbroke - I don't know why grain companies post prices the way they do and I don't care. I do my own homework and as a mechanic who understands how things work, don't care. At the end of the day, price is what is important.