Market Strategies

[charliep]

Anyone have anything to share on market strategies.

An interesting market I am following is soybeans. With all the large US soybean crop, holding $6/bu (Jan.) soybeans is going to be a tough job. Quoting a friend, the basic idea of marketing is to hold things that are cheap/sell something that is expensive.

Here are the canola and soybean charts (January contract).

http://futures.tradingcharts.com/chart/CA/16

http://futures.tradingcharts.com/chart/SB/16

What other strategies are you using and/or considering?

[charliep]

Just as a note of interest, I started the canola marketing idol thread on June 20 (you can still go back and see it) when prices were $321.80/tonne (November futures). Interesting enough, this was the top of the market this past summer. Not bragging cause I have had things go the other way often enough. I carried 40 % to the bitter end and didn't achieve my revenue needs.

A comment from Neil Blue (I have had the same experience) is how much easier it is to be a hedger than a speculator. What are others experiences?

[nw9flynn]

Just a quick note about Red Lentils.
With a larger crop than last year coming out of austrailia, and rumors of increased pulse acerage in india it looks like RL may have peaked for the year.
I started making sales @ 0.16/lb and have recently finished sales @ 0.14/lb. I am now only holding 15% of production.
Does anybody think holding RL is a good plan? If so why? What do you think the long term price outlook is?

[charliep]

Just as an interesting note here that soybeans have dropped 28 cents/bu since this thread started the beginning of the week. A large US soybean crop (3 bln bu), reasonable start to southern hemisphere crop, bird flu's potential impact on meal demand and a sick looking soyoil chart are all factors.

Reality for canola is a tough slug to higher prices. Combine this with canola in bins at higher moisture/cash flow needs and you get the marketing stress questions that Lee and I get on a regular basis. The question comes to what does a manager do under this situation.

What are peoples thoughts?