Marketing advisors

[SASKFARMER]

Larry and Grain shark!

[wrongway]

I tried cargills market sense for a couple of years, young guy with gauges in his ears and tattoos, wasn't in ag industry till hired by cargill. 10k a year and really only promoting in house programs that had fees to use. gave them all my financials and asked for some benchmarking in return...never got it. so dropped them then had a dozen calls asking why and promises to do better. their recommendations' where always based on percentage of crop...but who really know how much you're going to produce till its in the bin.
when grain prices rose for those 4-5 years they were always behind the 8_ball, then i dropped them . not sure how they performed this year...probably better.

lots and lots of good cheap information out there, just have to act on it.

[shtferbrains]

Like everything else it's all about the one guy you deal with?

If you get a guy you are comfortable with it doesn't matter what company they work for?

Might be a one man outfit.

[blackpowder]

After the past few years many got burnt very bad foreword selling with no crop .
we all get it but in areas where production has been very limited and unpredictable, foreword selling can cost the farm way way more than it can benefit.
good example this morning, a few degrees colder and this crop was screwed .
47 frost free days .
without an act of god contract , it can be a suicidal mission .

If you're getting offered $12 wheat in May it's a no brainer when there's options to cya.
Not preaching just always learning.

[Old Cowzilla]

Don't know if it is the weather as much as the black swan evens that happen these days that make grain marketing such a task. Lots of world wide crap happens every week it seems. One thing for sure you have to pre sell something because hauling off the combine uncontracted doesn't happen here because of lack of elevator space.

[blackpowder]

Reminds me of being told to "just build more bins" back in the day.
In 12 years we have seen the only legal buyer disappear. Globalisation fall apart. Trade disputes increase. China becoming powerful. Russia belligerent. More grain trading away from open outcry exchanges. Volume and velocity of money skyrocket.
Couple all that with a long up ride in prices. Our learning curve is dragging. As well, public policy and perception has gone off the rails regarding agriculture. And we're in a low cycle of who knows what length.
Remember how many neighbors disappeared in the last two?
The answer my friends is blowin in the wind.
And we ain't seen nothing yet.

[dave4441]

I have to give a plug to my friend Trent Klarenbach here (Wheatking).

When he first started analyzing small acreage crops like canaryseed and lentils I was skeptical it would work. Not because of his process but because of the liquidity or volume of trade in these small crops. But my fundamental analysis and his statistical analysis is very very similar and he has often been able to see things in the charts that i can feel in the cash market. I have been doing this for 23 years and often am wrong about price direction in the short term but fairly confident in the longer term.

A lot of analysis on the fundamental side comes from relationships by the analyst and someone like myself. But Trent's analysis simply looks at the fluctuation of price and doesn't let outside factors influence it.

The other thing I think is important to recognize the long term highs of the market and what is the profit per acre. Selling into those long term highs is critical in marketing and i see alot of people struggle once markets start dropping. Anything that can give you confidence helps.

[justme18]

Curious what advisors others are working with that they like and why you like them. I don’t care about options much at this point so not wanting some knob who thinks he had all the answers on that end. I shoulda got one years ago but finally gonna add one this fall. I was looking at Cargill market sense but they hired the tard that f’d up fbns marketing program. I’d prefer to work with one that doesn’t work for a grain company cause thats a no brainer in my head.

Perhaps I could be of some assistance to you!

[TechAnalyst]

I would like to share a few thoughts on this challenging topic.

Grain price moves over the past 5 years have had the ability to make anyone and likely everyone look like an idiot at times. Even the largest players (in market advisory services) have either ceased operations, look like they're going to or likely would be if not for hidden agendas.

I would suggest the first thing to be sure of is if you are okay with paying good money for advice that will be wrong? It can still add a lot of value and take a lot of stress off your plate but we are hard wired to expect performance. As you know with marketing, if the price goes up, they would have advised selling too much prior to. If it goes down, they didn't recommend enough sales first. Managed expectations are important for it to be worth pursuing.

In the big picture, the problem is everyone wants to apply logic (rightfully so), expecting if they could just get the fine details right, they would know what prices would do and recommend sales accordingly. The reality is, there are far more factors at play that often trump meaningful fundamentals, especially short term.

The unfortunate truth is that everyone in the world wants cheap food - other than farmers (and those that service them). This is especially true for governments and central banks that are responsible for managing inflation and economic health. Sadly, it is the latter group that sets policy, collects data and distributes the results. They have the ability to influence the price, and not in a good way, for the greater good of a country. (The exception is when the supply gets dangerously low).

To make matters worse, large funds have recognized the bias and embraced it, being far more aggressive with their selling than would be expected. 'Don't fight the Fed' has been a very profitable notion in the financial markets for decades.

On the flip side, the 18 month period around 2021 demonstrated how painful being blindly pessimistic can be. When prices stay too low for too long, supply suffers and there is no cushion for unexpected droughts or wars.

In my opinion, one should market as if the deck is stacked against them but with the upmost respect for price potential when supplies are driven too low. 'It doesn't matter until it matters' is a thing.

With that all in mind, I would recommend staying away from any market advisor that isn't humble enough (or realistic enough) to recognize how much influence outside forces have on prices.

I'm afraid this doesn't help answering 'who' but food for thought on 'who not' or even 'should I'.

My 2 cents worth (about 1/2 cent now with inflation)

Mitch Miller

[AlbertaFarmer5]

As you know with marketing, if the price goes up, they would have advised selling too much prior to. If it goes down, they didn't recommend enough sales first.

Wise words. I've heard it stated that every sale is wrong. Wrong because you sold too much, or wrong because you didn't sell enough.

[wheatking16]

Wise words. I've heard it stated that every sale is wrong. Wrong because you sold too much, or wrong because you didn't sell enough.

Good advice from Mitch and AlbertaFarmer5

One needs to own the decision.

Review the decision-making process.

If the process was faulty, then tweak or change, BUT learn from it.

If your decision making process is sound and consistent, then understand not every decision will work in your favor, in every aspect of life. The process matters more than the outcome. But first, the process has to be sound and proven

If the decision was emotional, then review the prior events triggering the emotion and learn from them understanding how to prevent that situation from occuring again.

Don't have the expectation of selling at the highs or beat yourself up for not achieving them. Your neighbor did not either.

The success of every business is not determined by profits, it is determined by losses.

[shtferbrains]

The time to sell was last week? For most of the last 2 years?

I'm no market advisor but I can read that chart.
Hindsight is 20/20? An most often nasty.

Chart from Karen Braun (@kannbwx)