Soybeans, similar to corn, are feeling the fallout from commodities across the board being pressured by the British fallout and the strength of the U.S. dollar. The bulls have been backpedaling aggressively all week, as prices are now down close to $1 per bushel from last week's high. The bears toss around more talk of 84 to 85 million soybeans acres being planted and crop-conditions that are decidedly better than last year -- a year that produced an all-time record U.S. yield of 48 bushels per acre.
The bulls continue to argue that the USDA is -50 to -100 million bushels too conservative in regard to their old and new-crop combined export estimates. The bulls also think the USDA is too conservative in regard to their current domestic crush estimates. Meaning even though acres may aggressively move higher, demand is extremely strong for U.S. soybeans and yield is certainly no guarantee, hence talk of old-crop ending stocks possible around 300 million bushels and new-crop arguably down to sub-200 million bushels; we are setting the stage for an extremely dangerous and volatile market.
As a producer I swapped out some risk this week by pricing more cash soybean bushels and reducing longer-term board exposure by liquidating some of the call premium I had previously sold. Even if you missed the opportunity to reduce more risk and price more cash on the new-crop run north of $11.80 early last week, you have to keep in mind that we are still about $2 per bushel over the spring insurance price guarantee. In other words if you still haven't priced any bushels, even though we both believe prices could rebound higher, force yourself to stop trying to predict market direction and get back to focusing on proper risk management.
My grandfather would always tell me, "Too often, we miss out on opportunities in life because we are watching for them to fall into our lap, and miss them tapping on our shoulder.” Be smart and don't allow yourself to get misguided by greed. Stick to your original game plan!
As a spec, I continue to believe the market could pull-back into the $10.20 to $10.80 area before finding more stable footing. Stay patient!
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