About This Episode
Duane Lowry's core method is on display: judge a USDA report by what the market does with it, not by the headline number. He walks Chris Barron through the January reports and keeps returning to two tells that ran counter to the bearish headline yields - the futures market reversed off its post-report low and closed near the day's high, and cash corn basis firmed immediately afterward. For Lowry, price action and basis are the market's vote on USDA data, and that vote outranks any analyst's reaction.
He then models how to audit a report line by line. USDA revised September stocks upward, cut 2018 production and feed use, lifted 2019-20 feed usage, and trimmed corn exports - moves that individually look technical but collectively kept carryout from falling. Set against declining world and Chinese ending stocks and rising global import projections, Lowry argues the export cut looks conservative. The lesson is to trace each revision to its effect on the bottom line rather than reading the summary.
The farm-level takeaway is about timing rather than a price target. Lowry expects firm basis into spring, sees room for old-crop strength if Phase One buying materializes, and warns that new-crop carryout builds as soon as acres return to trend yield. That argues for marketing a larger share of stored 2019 bushels in the near window and moving new-crop sales earlier than the customary May-June peak. Chris adds the cash-flow angle: rent payments come due regardless of what the market decides.
“At the end of the day, we evaluate price action, and price action evaluates and votes on USDA.”
— Duane Lowry
Key Takeaways
Judge a USDA report by the market's reaction and the cash basis response, not by the headline yield.
Read every revision to prior years - production, stocks, feed and residual - because they change the current carryout without appearing in the headline.
Firm basis immediately after a bearish report is the cash market telling you supplies are tighter than the report implies.
When old-crop fundamentals look tighter than new-crop, move stored bushels first and pull new-crop sales earlier than the usual late-spring peak.
Watch whether importing countries' ending stocks decline year after year; that trend outlasts any single trade headline.
Being the only analyst on one side of a view is information to test, not a reason to abandon the analysis.
Full Transcript
Narrator: Podcast listeners, we just wanted to remind you of the Farm Future Summit that's coming up here on January 23rd and 24th in Iowa City. That's at the Coralville Marriott Hotel and Conference Center. They got a great lineup of speakers, information, and breakouts that they're going to be having there. Chris is going to be speaking on a few different topics. Uh, if you have any interest, please reach out to us. Uh, we have a promotional code for our clients and those who listen to the podcast here. We can try and get you a little bit of a discount headed into the Farm Futures Summit. But we truly believe that this is one of the better industry summits that's put on out there. Lots of great information. Please look into checking it out. You know, we don't get a commission or anything off of this. We just truly believe in the information that's being shared here at this conference.
So give us a shout, zbaran@agviewsolutions.com. And thanks again for listening. We will catch you next time on the Ag View Pitch.
Chris: Welcome everybody to another episode of the Ag View Pitch, and we're heading into a new week. But before we start talking about the new week, you've got Chris Barron and Dwayne Lowery here. And Dwayne, let's have a little conversation yet about the report. I was traveling this over the weekend and heard a lot of comments and a little frustration with the the USDA report and just, just some question and where some of the numbers came from. So I, I think one of the things we'd like to do is just kind of have you review those again, kind of go through some of the, some of the things that you've had a little time now over the weekend to kind of digest what was in the report. And is there anything that, that we should be discussing in all that?
Duane
Lowery: Well, Chris, there's a lot of things in this report. The more you kind of look at it There's also a lot of head shaking, some frustration, and that's becoming kind of a general aura after these reports. And I will do my best not to get on too much of a soapbox, but at the same time, there are a lot of things that I do want to point out. I want to point it out in the format kind of of a question to the audience and say, you know, how do you feel about this? How do you react to this? And what are the implications and what looks out of balance. And I'm a little wound up about the report. I will try not to show as much of that emotion as, as I might be feeling. But having said that, no guarantees I'll be able to follow through with that disclaimer. Yeah.
Chris: So, well, what are, what are some of the things that stick out, or what are some of the things that as producers we should be paying attention to specifically, and, and, and is that really going to have some, something that we can do about it, you know, moving forward? And I'll lay that out at you too.
Duane
Lowery: Well, I'm going to go with the assumption most of our listeners, or virtually all of our listeners, will have already seen the data on the report, so I'm not going to bore anybody with going over those. I will say that before I get into the report data, I want to just touch on the price action we had Friday. Friday's price action seemed to kind of visually see a headline reaction to the report, and the headline reaction to the report was in the national yields of corn and beans both being increased. And that got, of course, a bearish initial reaction, a headline reaction, if you will. But then the market quickly made the lows of the day following the report and then quickly began a steady decline or a steady increase that actually for the most part continued all the way into the closing bell.
So at the end of the day, the markets have to be classified as being performing relatively well. Also, after the close, cash corn basis was immediately higher and it varied on the location but it was definitely a firm tone to it. And I think that's very important to, to recognize those two factors about how the prices performed and what the basis did following the report as being maybe a, a good legitimate barometer of how the market reacted to the report and how they analyzed it. In terms of some of the things that I thought were very interesting in in the report data that I kind of want to point out is— well, I'll just kind of start listing, listing the things off that I thought were important. On it, unharvested acres and expected production in Friday's— are included in Friday's production report.
And so that means that Michigan, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wisconsin will all be resurveyed in the spring, sometime in the spring, for acreage and production. But whatever the acres and expected production they have there are included in our— in Friday's reports. In the case of beans, you got Michigan, North Dakota, and Wisconsin that will all be resurveyed because of the amount of unharvested soybean acreage. That still exists, but the expected production from that is built into the report. The other thing that was— another thing that was interesting is USDA went back and adjusted the September 1st stocks report. So the data that was just released September 30th, they adjusted that. They managed to increase on-farm stocks and off-farm stocks. They increased on-farm stocks by about 61 million bushels And the off-farm stocks, they elevated those by about 45 million.
So somehow we found, you know, whatever that would be, 106 million bushels more of corn than what they told us that we had on September 30th. The on-farm— yeah, the on-farm thing, you know, I guess is maybe acceptable, although I don't understand why they would adjust it since they just did this September 30th. But I find the off-farm number, you know, interesting because every elevator has to keep track of what their bushels are. They have scale tickets in, they got scale tickets out, they have an accounting system that tracks it. So I don't understand why there would be an adjustment, but you just take it at face value. They also— that by doing that, that results in the carryout in 19-20 not declining as much as it would have been had they not done that, obviously. So there's a price tempering effect on that.
Um, the USDA also in the January report lowered 2018 corn production by 80 million bushels, and they lowered '18's harvested acres by 400,000 acres. So that's different in the January report than what you would have seen in the December report or any report prior to that. They also— this also reduced September through November corn usage disappearance was slightly less than last year. September through November soybean usage or disappearance was up 8% from last year. And the September through November wheat use disappearance was up 35% from a year ago for that same time frame. I find that interesting. In the case of wheat, it's probably due to a larger increase in wheat exports, and that's probably true in soybeans as well, for— because China's usage during that window.
The other thing I thought was interesting in the report is we were kind of told to have to wait with anticipation for the silage data because all the acres that supposedly were going— were planted this summer late that were not going to be harvested, but they were going to be used for silage. But if you look at the silage data released, they had 2019 acres at 6.5 million and change that went for— this is corn that was used for silage. If you compare that to last year, It was 6.1 million, and 2017 it was 6.4 million. So statistically, it's a minor increase in corn acreage for silage in '19. The other interesting figure is, despite the fact that it was planted later, despite the fact that the presumption was that the yield and therefore the weight of the corn would be less than '19, they have 2019 corn silage yield at 20.2 tons to the acre.
That compares to 19.9 last year and 20 million— or 20 tons in '17. So it's the highest silage yield we've had of the last 3 years, was found in 2019, despite the fact that it was planted later and therefore would have less kernel weight. If not less overall stature of the plant. And so I said, that was interesting.
Chris: Dwayne, where do they get that? Where do they get that number from on the tons per acre?
Duane
Lowery: Well, for the lack of a better answer, I'm just going to say they get it out of thin air. I don't know where they get that from. They— I don't know if they get that from survey. I'm not sure how they get it, and I'm not going to make up an answer. I'm just going to tell you, I don't know, but that's what they gave us for an answer. So my first question is, what happened to all the extra corn silage acres that we were expected to get in '19? And then also, this clearly seems to not line up with all the anecdotal subpar silage reports we heard during the fall of '19. You know, were those all lies, or what's, what's wrong with that? Or are we expected that Somewhere down the road this will get adjusted. You know, I can come up with lots of questions, but I have zero answers to those questions. I just throw it out for something to be interesting.
You know, I think the conclusion that we— or one conclusion we can get from this is that farmers planted all of their actual or real intended corn acreage that they had in the spring, mostly. And then they maximized reporting prevent plant corn acres as much as they were legally able to do based on USDA's rules. And for determining what, what, what it was prevent plant corn acres and what was prevent plant bean acres. I'm not implying the farmer did anything he wasn't allowed to do. I'm just saying that he maximized that into corn. But somehow at the end of the day, we still got all that corn acres planted. And somehow at the end of the day, we're supposed to conclude that June 1 and later corn plantings had minimal impact on yields and far less of an impact on yields than decades of university research told us.
And we're also supposed to believe that the excessive wetness found in '19 along with the late planting, had much less of a negative impact on corn yield than decades of university research and farmer experiences taught us. I'm not saying that it's wrong, I'm just saying that the results implies that everything we thought about those types of years and conditions, the impact at least in 2019 was much less than, than we were expecting. In some respects, when you look at this USDA data and compare it to what we've been taught to believe, either through university research or through our own experience, we're— you know, we have to conclude that 2019 was indeed a very magical production season.
The other thing is USDA went back to '18-'19 marketing season, so the '18 crop, and they lowered feed and residual usage in that year 186 million bushels in the January report versus what they had in the December report. Therefore, that also has a softening impact on any potential of reduction in demand or carryout for the '19-'20 marketing season. So in this feed and residual category, feed usage or residual, the residual part is really an AKA fudge factor category, you know, or also known as, that's what the AKA stands for. So to summarize here, USDA said in January that '18 production needed to be lowered again by 80 million bushels. They found more corn in on-farm and off-farm categories than what they reported to us on September 30th, and they, um, also determined that in that process, they determined that all those previous reports somehow collectively were off.
And so at the end of the day, this ended up with a minimal reduction in 19-20 carryout, where a lot of the figures that we would notice and look at would imply that the carryout went down. But yet, yet it didn't. So, but at the same time, while they went back and lowered feed usage in '18, in '19-'20, they actually increased feed usage by 250 million bushels from their estimate of their own estimate of just one month ago. So I don't know about the rest of you, but my head's kind of spinning from that. You would assume that if they had to go back and adjust '18's feed usage lower, you would think there'd be an implication that maybe their '19 feed usage might be overstated as well. However, they actually increased '19-'20 feed usage by 250 million bushels versus what they had in their projections from just one month ago.
At the same time, they took and, and lowered corn exports by 75 million from what they had one month ago. Now I'm gonna skip around a little bit, but I want you to remember that figure. USDA Friday lowered corn exports by 75 million bushels. Now I want to take you back to some other interesting aspects here. In the previous months, US won a WTO, WTO complaint about China and how they're using their import quotas. And the implication would be that maybe they're throttling back what imports could be or should be through regular WTO, um, agreed-upon principles. Okay, that's a short version of it. But yet USDA lowered their exports here by 75 million. Now I want you to keep that in mind because the— here are some other nuggets of information from Friday's report. They have world corn ending stocks declining.
In 2018 or '17, the ending stocks, world ending stocks, and this is— does not include China. China's kept separate, but world ending stocks in 2017 were about 119 million tons. In 2018, there were about 110. In Friday's report, they have world ending stocks declining to 98.7 million metric tons. Now, if you look at China, which is done separately, they have their import levels rising. They have 2017— they are— excuse me, world imports they have rising. Again, not including China. We'll get to China in a minute. In '17, world corn imports were 147 million tons. In 2018, they're 158 million metric tons. In 2019, they're supposed to be 160 million tons. So here we have world ending stocks declining, world corn imports rising. Now let's take a look at China. In 2017, USDA said China would import 3.5 million metric tons. In 2018, they had them at 4.5.
They now have China projected at 7 million metric ton in 2019. Now, if you think that that might include the Phase One trade deal, you're mistaken, because that 7 million metric ton projection from USDA in Friday's January report was also included as the same figure in December, November, October, and September reports. So why would China— or why would USDA be showing these import trends rising for China in corn? Well, part of the reason is that China's ending stocks— the ending stocks for just China in '17 were 118 million tons, 110 million tons in '18, and, and, uh, now for '19 they got China's ending stocks at 98 million tons. So I also want to address the fact that everybody's talking about all these increased export, uh, competition from Argentina, Brazil, and Ukraine.
If you take a look at what USDA had in Friday's report for the current marketing year, they have collectively the Argentina, Brazil, and Ukraine exports down 8.3 million metric ton from what they were last year. But they have corn exports. We're supposed to be down 200 million bushels from last year also. So on the one hand, you have our toughest competitors in Argentina, Brazil, and Ukraine. They're going to export 8 million tons less than they did the last year. Okay, that's 327 million bushels. But they also have U.S. corn exports declining by 290 million bushels as well for, for this year. But at the same time, you have China's ending stocks declining the last 3 years, their import projections rising. You have world imports rising each of the last 3 years, with the current year being the highest projected of all of them.
And you have world corn ending stocks declining each of the last 3 years. But somehow, with all that happening, our competitors down 327 million, we can't seem to get a break and they— we can't get USDA to increase the corn exports. I find that interesting and I find that as an opportunity for some hope in the months ahead that we might see U.S. export potential or the optimism level rise some. With that, we have the China trade agreement going to be signed this week, the 15th, on Wednesday, and somehow they're supposed to increase imports of ag products by 40— up to a $40 to $50 billion per year level versus approximately $26 million billion this last year. So where is this going to come from? If corn plays a part in this, isn't there a possibility that the current projection on China's corn imports are understated, number one. And number two, isn't it likely or probable that the U.S.
is going to participate in that and get more exports? So if you look at all of these factors that are, that are raw data given by you to us by USDA on Friday's report, it's a reasonable conclusion that we can see demand numbers improve in later reports. And it's a reasonable conclusion that none of the data has any implications from Phase 1, which is going to be signed Wednesday, which is not out of character for USDA not to address those type of things, those type of trade agreements, until they actually see the, the buying occur. And for those that want to say, um, anything with Phase 1 that the U.S. gets extra will be at the expense of another country, I want to draw your attention again back to their ending stocks. Their ending stocks are down 20 million tons from 2 years ago, and it was— it's been a steady decline of about 10 million tons each year.
Number one, I wonder if that isn't a pattern that will continue, and it's an indication that they can't grow enough to meet their domestic demand. And number two, I would offer up that it's possible to meet their Phase 1 trade agreements, maybe, just maybe, China will buy corn for state reserves to build their stocks. And if their stocks is down 20 million tons, it's suddenly not unreasonable to think that the U.S. may get 8 million tons of corn export business to China based on things that have been published by, you know, Bloomberg and others. As, as a, as a reasonable possible target. So my point here is, if you have discouragement or disgust or frustration, I would revert you back to where I started this conversation, that price action Friday was better than the headline suggested.
And corn basis Friday afternoon already is showing kind of a vote from the real world that supplies are still tight. And I've just rattled off a lot of information, uh, statistically in that report that can justify the idea that we may have some better demand projections ahead of us. And I offer that up for a reason to have optimism towards the front end or the current marketing year, where maybe some of these factors are offset for the new crop outlook by more acres of return towards a yield in preseason yield projection of, you know, 176, 178, who knows, 180, and suddenly you have— you do have a more burdensome supply outlook for new crop. However, again, I'm going back to all these other factors that suggest the demand outlook from here forward will also improve. So that's kind of a long overview of what we got in that report Friday, but I think it's all legitimate.
The last thing I want to say about the report, and this is going to be a question to you, Chris, is the USDA pegged Iowa to have a 2 bushel an acre larger yield in '19 than we had in 2018. I find it difficult to find producers that had yields better than last year for an operation. Average. I find a lot of people in a 10 to 20 bushel category less than last year, and it's not difficult to find people in different segments of the state that are 20 to 40 below last year. So I offer to you, Chris, please explain what your thoughts are on Iowa being 2 bushels better than last year for a state average.
Chris: Yeah, the great question. I, I don't think I really can because that's not really what we're seeing. Although I would say there's, you know, there was really good yields in the south central and southwestern portions of Iowa, yields that were better than last year. But from what we've seen, we've seen it, you know, on average, like I said, I don't know, a couple podcasts ago, in Iowa, we were seeing about, you know, somewhere between a 10% and 12% reduction from last year with our client base, but Apparently their sample size is bigger or different or something because it's counterintuitive to what we are seeing, I guess. But, you know, it probably doesn't really matter what we think though either, right? I mean, it's kind of like this report.
I mean, it's, you know, the report's going to say whatever the report's going to say, and what probably ultimately is going to matter in the next week or two, isn't it going to be more about the reaction to the report than what the report says? Or what's your thought on that?
Duane
Lowery: Well, at the end of the day, we always are faced with the same conclusion. We are forced to accept USDA at face value, and then we have to look at how the market trades separately. But we're not allowed to really question USDA. We have to accept it until they come back in and change it, whether that's in next month's report, the following month report, or a report from a year from now. USDA has proven many, many, many, many times that they can go back and adjust things. Therefore, they're allowed to question each of their monthly reports, but somehow we're really not allowed to do that. And there's no value in really questioning it by too much because we just have to accept the report and move on.
But at the end of the day, we do get to evaluate price action by the hour, by the day, by the week, and the price action ultimately is the main, um, assessment of everything that we are forced and we legitimately try to analyze and try to predict. That's what it's all about. A farmer is trying to predict what's going to happen, and that's going to dictate his marketing plan. We as analysts are trying to figure out, you know, what's going to happen, and we use technical analysis, fundamental assessments, whatever it may be. But at the end of the day, we evaluate price action, and price action evaluates and votes on USDA. Cash basis already made that vote Friday afternoon by bumping up their bid. Clearly the cash buyers are concerned they're not buying enough fast enough.
And I would point out that in the last 30 days, the cash buyers had the great fortune of having very mild and favorable weather that would allow the producer to to find reasons to justify moving some grain now, as opposed to the unknown of what maybe may lie ahead of us for something more harsh and much more miserable to deal with in terms of, of hauling grain. So the cash buyers had every possible thing to try to entice and encourage greater farmer movement, yet the basis levels have stayed firm and immediately firmed after the USDA report. And we also had farmers that were facing some level of fear about this USDA report as another enticement to make some sales.
And we also know that the, the banking industry is pushing the farmer through a, a tie-in that they needed to reduce inventory of grain, turn it into cash, before they could get approved on some of their new crop 2020 financing. All these factors created an environment that the cash buyer is probably getting maximum selling activity versus a previous year. And yet the basis levels are still staying strong. There's a, there's got to be some implication in the cash, from the cash market about supply That seems to be counterintuitive to what we've got, we're getting from USDA.
Chris: Yeah, well, and I think the, the cash, you know, the processors, they probably were hoping for, for a price increase just to get some more moved anyway, weren't they?
Duane
Lowery: Yes, I think that's probably correct. But the cash buyer clearly is not comfortable with this supply. And/or they're not comfortable with their expectation of how easy it will get for that supply to move in the weeks ahead. And we're in Iowa, and I'm basing everything I just said in from what I can see and feel right here. But you go to the eastern Midwest, the fear level on supply from the buyer side, much more heightened. You got 40-over basis values, you got basis bids that were up a nickel Friday afternoon, they're really wondering where their supply is going to be met and how easily that will be met versus the demand throughout the marketing year. So, you know, that's a very interesting thing to think, and we're going to see it play out in how the market responds here over the next few weeks, I would imagine.
So, you know, we want to keep this whole podcast on a relatively shortened level because I could sit here and talk about this for hours. And if you can't tell the excitement in my voice, It's only probably held back because I've been fighting— what did I tell you I had? I forgot. What do they call that?
Chris: Bronchitis or something?
Duane
Lowery: Bronchitis.
Chris: Yes.
Duane
Lowery: Yeah, I've even been taking medication. So I'm really wound up here on medication and everything else.
Chris: So you're wound up. What about a lot of the other analysts or the trade? You know, because you hear a lot of, you know, everybody's got an opinion, right? So What, you know, what's this all mean for us as producers? And, you know, what, how, what do we take away from this? You know, what if, if there was a couple of things that would be smart on our part as producers to do? You know, what do you think? What's some perspective out there that we should have as producers?
Duane
Lowery: Here's my takeaway on the producer level. Number one, I don't know what other analysts are saying, and And I don't really care. The, um, generally speaking, the trade has had a kind of a negative bias or a lack of bullish enthusiasm bias. And if you can see it presented in the fact that the large traders are harboring, holding a short position, it's important to point out they were holding that short position at the lows that were made in December when everybody thought the market was going to collapse. And go to who knows what level to the downside. It was a race to come out with a lower projection from one analyst to the next. That has proven not to be accurate so far. We've had an increase in prices in December. We had a— we still have that large spec short position. We have a headline bearish report that we got on Friday.
We had a reaction to that that was several cents in the negative territory. That was reversed before the day is over. The farmer needs to take into account everything on his own farm and how everything dollars up, and that has got to determine how he makes sales, when he makes sales, things of this nature. But me as an analyst, I'm sitting here thinking the takeaway here is you have an old crop scenario, your '19 production, that is going to deal with probably a firm basis tone from here all the way into the spring River Open type of, uh, timeframe. What happens after that, I'm not willing to make a lot of bets, but between now and then, cash basis is going to remain firm.
It is very possible that with Phase 1 and a movement in the trade anticipation to something more optimistic towards demand in the, in, during the next few months, I think we have an opportunity for some price strength on old crop months. If you look at a spot continuation chart on corn, we have a chart formation that can easily build into some trending higher pattern here over the next 90 or 120 days. That being said, you have a lot of resistance that will be found on spot contracts around $4.20 to $4.40. Okay, some of those numbers, as I say them, I'm sure are finding ears that feel that those numbers hard to believe and they don't think it's gonna happen.
I get that, but I think that based on the trend in demand, the trend in declining stocks, the trend in global imports, the China input with Phase 1, we do have an opportunity here where we can have demand and higher, produce higher prices in the near term. We also have another completely different set of fundamental numbers that will evolve over the next weeks and few months that project a rising US carryout for new crop production based on the optimism that comes at the beginning of every marketing season. So the takeaway here for me is nearby prices confirm new crop prices might have some ceilings attached. And if we're able to get spreads to tighten, we're nearby is stronger than new crop,.
But in the process of getting an elevated price structure in the old crop, to the extent that spills over some influence on new crop, I think there are opportunities here for farmers to get better prices where they're going to want to be marketing a larger portion of their '19 production during the next 30, 60, 90 days, whatever happens to be. And probably they're going to want to be looking at new crop sales, um, early on here rather than waiting for, say, maybe a typical mid-May to mid-June price peak. Maybe it's going to occur earlier this year. So I think that's the takeaway, and that's how I would summarize the producer opportunity here, that we might have a window here where the Argentina and Brazil corn export program is not a competitor of ours, and we can step up some exports in the front end here that hopefully give us a price boost, hopefully spills over to new crop.
And there's also an argument to be made that the soybean market, which I haven't talked about much, I don't want to talk about too much today, there's also an argument made within the USDA report on Friday, um, that carryout could decline some and projections for next year, we have to have at least 8 million more bean acres to get carryout to hold unchanged. So there's still a chance that we're going to get a little bit of an acreage battle develop here before spring that might help keep corn prices elevated and not suffer a lot from the, some of the negative supply scenarios some people will be touting for new crop. We might have a window here where there's still an acreage battle scenario with a push for more bean acres. So those are my takeaways, kind of my final thoughts.
Chris: Yeah, and that's, that's the thing, you know, I hopefully we do see some price strength. I know there's, you know, just from the managing the margins on the other side of it, from our perspective, it's, it's a situation where I think guys are going to need cash flow as we get towards the timeframe when cash rents are going to be due and that kind of thing. So we'll have to be— you know, on our toes and be watching this stuff really close, and we'll stay with everybody and keep bringing information along. And if there's questions out there too, make sure you let us know if you've got specific questions for Duane on any of this information on the markets.
You rattled a lot of stuff off out there, Duane, so if somebody has a specific question, you know, go ahead and email us and he can address those questions specifically, and then we can bring them up in another podcast if we need to, if there's something that somebody doesn't understand or needs explained a little in more detail. One last quick question, Duane, that U.S. trade agreement signing is Wednesday. Any, any black swan potential there? Any chance of a breakdown or any problem there? If there were, is that going to be a big negative on the market, or are we okay to get through Wednesday, or is that not something to worry about?
Duane
Lowery: You know, Chris, I'm not sure, um, when it comes to this Phase 1, I feel like I'm in a completely different world than everybody else. I've said this before, I think I've said it in podcasts, I know I've put in, in written products that I produce, but I feel like I'm in a completely different world here. The reason that is, is $40 billion, if you take it at face value with what Trump said, what was supposed to be an agreement, what apparently is confirmed to be in the agreement. They don't break it down where that $40 billion comes, but it evidently is in it. So if, if you take that at face value, that it's $40 billion plus, and you compare it to $26 billion that they did the last year, hey, that's $14 billion. That's a sizable amount of something that's got to happen.
Just to put in perspective, I, I'm not exactly sure, I don't remember now, but it seems to me like, you know, I was kicking around the idea that What if China wanted to put 20 million tons into re— into reserve to build up reserve? I'm not saying that they do that. In fact, I'm sure they won't do that. But to put in perspective, I think 20 million tons of corn, roughly speaking, is only $3.5 billion. So if you got to increase— if they have to increase purchases from last year by $14 billion, well, 20 million metric tons, obviously that's a huge purchase. That's only $3.5 billion. So it's going to take something very big to achieve this $40 billion. And so— That's a good point. I'm sitting here, I'm sitting here out here feeling like I'm all by myself in a world that I think they are going to meet that commitment. And yet the marketplace doesn't seem to care.
They don't think it's going to happen, or they have doubt, or they're just complacent. So here you have Wednesday come along that they're going to sign this agreement. Well, if I'm China and I know I'm going to sign this agreement and I know I've got to do all these purchases, and now it's about to become, you know, a real thing in the world to contend with, with an actual signing, don't you think they've got to be trying to make plans and commitments already to make some of these purchases? Why would they go advertise to the whole world what they're going to do and then face the pressure of having the market race them. And the market clearly has not yet raced them. But, you know, you talked about a black swan, what makes the market go lower from this signing. And I'm sitting here thinking exactly the opposite. When does it become a reality in the market?
They, they say, oh my goodness, they are really going to buy something. And when are— you know, I'm sitting here wondering, if the signing's Wednesday, why aren't we Why shouldn't we be expecting some Chinese purchase announcements as early as Monday or Tuesday or Wednesday morning? Why, why shouldn't we expect that? That seems reasonable to me, but the marketplace does not expect that.
Chris: Well, that's good perspective, and, and, uh, you're right, because they're, you know, everybody's on one side of the boat right now, and when everybody's on one side, I guess it's probably smart to walk towards the other side.
Duane
Lowery: Well, um, like I say, I feel like I'm on another planet.
Chris: Well, I appreciate all your conversation today, Duane, and it's really, you know, we try to do a weekly outlook of where we think things are going to go this, this upcoming week. And I think this, this, uh, US trade agreement signing is going to be a big deal going into this week. And if, like I said, if people have questions or want to have any, any additional discussion on anything, please reach out to us. And one chance here for one last final comment, Dwayne.
Duane
Lowery: Okay, that could be dangerous territory, but I'm going to say that I've already said all the final comments I think that I'm going to say. I will say, I offer this, I threw out a lot of statistics very quickly and offered some insight on those statistics.. And it's very difficult to keep up with that in an audio format. Um, I haven't written my Sunday comments yet, but I'm sure that I'm going to have a lot of that data in there. And I will offer out— while the— my Sunday product is a subscription-based product, I will offer it to any of our listeners. If you would like to receive a copy of that, I will email that to you, um, sometime between this afternoon, this evening, or tomorrow morning. So if somebody would like to see kind of what I threw out there in the audio, I'm sure some of that will be in the written comments. If you'd like to get that, just email me.
My email address should probably be on the email that you got regarding this podcast. If it's not, it's daniel@netins.net. You email me and I'll, I'll get you a, a copy of my Sunday night comments. It may not be, you know, exactly here Sunday night, but you'll have it sometime by Monday morning, and then you can kind of look over it and judge for yourself. And a lot of what I'm saying and trying to imply and what I'm writing and trying to convey through that writing is I'm throwing this out to you and I'm asking you to discern it and, and see how that fits into your marketing plan, how that might help your marketing plan. And of course, just as a little plug, if you're interested in helping with marketing plans, that is a service I provide. It's a very reasonable service, and I hopefully it has value. If you're interested in that, you can email and ask me about that as well.
So that's my pitch, which I usually don't throw in, but That's my final thought.
Chris: Yeah, well, I appreciate that, Dwayne. I think that's really a valuable key because I was sitting here taking notes and struggling keeping up with you as well. So I encourage people to take you up on that or go back and re-listen and take notes if you haven't already jotted some of this stuff down, because I think you start running the numbers, you gotta— there's a lot of credibility to what you're saying, Dwayne, and we're just gonna have to watch that and manage all that with with what we need to do for decisions on our own farm. So with that, I think we better wrap things up, uh, for now, and we will be back next week. Thanks a lot, Dwayne, appreciate it.
Duane
Lowery: Thanks, Chris, it's been fun, and I've tried to throttle myself.
Chris: Yeah, no, it's great, it's good conversation, and thanks everybody for listening this time, and we'll catch you next time on the Ag View Pitch.
Narrator: Thanks for joining us on today's episode of the EggView Pitch. As always, you can reach out to us at cbarron@agviewsolutions.com or duanel@netins.net. We'll catch you next time on the EggView Pitch.