A Crude Connection Between Grains and Geopolitics
There are some clear and certain ways the war in Ukraine is affecting grain prices, like the cutoff of wheat and corn shipments from...
The History and Future of High Fertilizer Prices
Alarming record-high fertilizer prices in December 2021 don't seem quite so bad when compared apples-to-apples to 2012 highs, or the...
Supply Chain Woes
Why is it such an anxiety-laced struggle to buy a jug of glyphosate this fall? The short answer: I don't know. No one knows the full...
Hog Market Needed Clearer, Faster Prop 12 Signals
Lean hog futures prices have hit another patch of volatility -- mostly downward volatility, like last Thursday's (Aug. 19) $2 drop -- and...
Beef Market: When High Prices Aren't Enough
In the commodity markets, we often say "the cure for high prices is high prices." Either the tantalizing profits will motivate a huge...
Plague Year Price Patterns
Human behavior appears to be as predictably unpredictable in the 21st century as it was in the 17th century. There are astonishing...
Yes, Commodities (or at least their futures) can be worth less than nothing
At some point on the morning of Monday, April 20, I noticed that front-month crude oil futures were worth about $4 per barrel....
Energy markets spooked by "overpriced" corn
In an extremely challenging market environment for the ethanol industry -- when driving demand has fallen 80% in certain regions of the...
The Old-Fashioned Idea of Cattle Prices Following Stock Prices
Conventional wisdom (or at least the conventional wisdom among old cattle traders) says that when the stock market is doing well, cattle...
Sickness Spreads Through Freight Markets
Imagine you are a freight provider -- a trucker, say -- and the demand for your services is so poor that the market's freight rates have...