The marketplace is a very fickle place. My dad used to quip many times that “someone must have turned on the sprinklers in Chicago and they think we are getting rain” whenever the markets were down. All joking aside, it doesn’t take much to move the market, but that is because we have so many fluid pieces that keep us juggling the prices. What may be good news one moment can quickly turn bad as things change. I am not including USDA reports in this thought process, but as we saw in this week’s WASDE report, they definitely can be a big factor.
What we are focusing on today is more “out of our control” factors that have the world in an uproar.
Joe Vaclavik is President of Standard Grain, and he is going to share some of the thoughts he has as we move through this fall. Starting with the fact that November is when we usually see the markets stop paying attention to the harvest that is wrapping up.
We have talked at length as well about what is happening in South America between it being too wet in the south and too dry in the northern growing regions. This is causing them problems as they should be wrapped up with soybean planting and enjoying the rainy season.
Then, of course, we have two armed conflicts happening. The Russian and Ukrainian war is coming close to closing its second year, and the recent troubles between Israel and Hamas-led Palestinians is keeping the market nervous.
These are just the issues we are looking at today as we finish out 2023, and head into 2024. We have no clue what new factors face us in the coming year.
