About This Episode
Ryan Moe of StoneX gives Chris Barron and co-host Paul Neiffer a way to read the buyer across the table. A crush plant has two jobs, never run out of beans and make money on the beans, and job two must never get in the way of job one, which is why fat crush margins keep a buyer aggressive. He also splits the country in two: the eastern belt is tight on corn, the west is still holding most of the carryout, and the two markets behave nothing alike.
That geography sets the action. If you sit west with a large carryout behind you, a basis bump is worth taking before harvest floods the same narrow door, and Moe's test is deliberately low: you do not have to love it, you only have to like it. On chasing strength he is blunter still, warning that chasing a wheat rally with corn has burned people repeatedly, and that in weeks like this correlations collapse toward one and energy becomes the thing actually setting the price.
The closing stretch is the part that outlives the week. Barron argues planting conditions matter more than planting date, and that starting two days early follows you across every field you touch afterward. Both men land on the same humility: a farmer may know more about his own agronomy than the market does, but the market is the one keeping score. Moe's parting frame is the widest one. Run a good business, because your competitor is a producer in Brazil or Australia, not your neighbor.
“We become better business people when there's pressure, whether it's marketing pressure, weather, whatever. If everything was really easy, we aren't that great of business people.”
— Chris Barron
Key Takeaways
Read your buyer's incentives. A processor's first job is keeping the plant running, so strong crush margins mean an aggressive bid you can use.
When a large carryout sits behind you, take the basis bump before harvest. You do not have to love it, you have to like it.
Do not price your corn off a wheat rally. Strength borrowed from another market usually leaves you disappointed.
Planting conditions beat planting date, and starting two days early compounds across every field you plant after it.
You may know your own farm better than the market does, but the market keeps score, so trade what it does rather than what you know.
Your competitor is the producer in Brazil, Australia or Argentina, not the neighbor down the road. Run the business accordingly.
Full Transcript
Chris
Barron: Welcome everybody to another episode of the Ag View Pitch. We're heading into another marketing week, actually the middle of May already, believe it or not, the 11th through the 15th. And we are lucky enough to have with us co-host here and Ryan Moe at StoneX. So we've got Paul, who a lot of people know, and a lot of people know Ryan. So how are you guys today?
Paul
Neiffer: Doing pretty good, Ryan.
Ryan
Moe: I'm doing great here, Chris.
Chris
Barron: Thanks. Good, good, good. So we're recording after the close on Friday. This goes out Sunday afternoon as usual. Talk to us a little bit about this past week, Ryan. We've had a little pressure on the markets at, you know, middle of the week there. What are you seeing? What are you guys watching on your end?
Ryan
Moe: So for the first part of the week, we were really busy. There was quite a few of the folks with the marketing plan of I don't sell any old corn until I can see my new corn. Well, as that corn started spiking through here, we start in the market rallied. There was quite a few producers that did a good job of rewarding the rally on the upside on Monday and Tuesday. So Monday, Tuesday trade flows were really, really hot. Wednesday, Thursday, things just died. But then when you look at the technical formation— and I'm not going to claim to be the technical expert that many are. I'm going to sit there and tell people that it was a really solid ending to the week because the technical formation that took place on Thursday got a little bit of recovery here on Friday. So it turned out better, but the trade volume was quite low.
Because we are a long ways from the high on July corn of $4.87 and a half. We're closing here at $4.71 and a quarter. It's a really long ways away from prices farmers have already seen. And so therefore things really slowed down in the second half of the week.
Chris
Barron: What, what do you think? Is there quite a bit of old crop moving? Or is it quite a bit of new or a blend of both about the same amount on each? Or what are you thinking on corn and beans for that matter?
Ryan
Moe: The word moving is a loaded question. It's a loaded word because a lot of this is stuff that's sitting in the elevator already or sitting with the processor already, right? Farmers aren't moving because, well, they're farming, right? And so they want to be out, you know, doing application, they want to be planting, they want to be doing other things other than delivering grain. So the grain that we did see sold this week was largely stuff that was already sitting in somebody else's inventory. Anyway, so that was all stores that they, they knew that they already had. It was just a matter of time before it got priced. And that was first part of this week was a lot of that stuff got priced. So a lot of corn left to be sold. I mean, there's a tale of two completely different markets, East Coast, Eastern Corn Belt versus Western Corn Belt.
We still have a ton of corn left to move here in the Western Corn Belt. Beans everywhere. A lot of places are pretty well sold up, a lot of plans have already been executed on the soybeans. And so now it's just a matter of getting through the rest of the season. So on beans, regardless of East Coast versus West Coast, I guess it's not the coast, but it's what I call it anyway. When you look at the crush margins that are just absolutely phenomenal, a bean buyer's job is to keep their foot on the accelerator because one is to— your job number one is in that position is to make sure that the plant never runs out of beans. Job 2 is to make money on it. But don't let Job 2 ever get in the way of Job 1. But when you're looking at crush margins where they're at right now on the soy crush side, north of $3, you do whatever you can to go ahead and just keep crushing as hard as you possibly can.
So on the bean side, you know, there, we're gonna have enough beans to get things to the rest of the season here, or through the rest of the year. But a lot of those plans have already been largely executed. It's just a matter of getting, getting them through the crusher now. So that kind of explains bean movement, corn movement. It's tight in the East. Boy, do we have a lot of corn in the West left to come out of storage. So two completely different scenarios. We're telling our Western Corn Belt people that if you get a bump in basis here, you better hit it and hit it hard, because you might not love it. You gotta like it. And if you like it, that's going to be good enough this year. Because once the tin can harvest starts in July, August, and September in the Western Corn Belt, there's so much to come to the marketplace, the basis is probably just going to die.
So got to be, got to be on your toes, looking for what you might want to take.
Chris
Barron: Going to be a real small door at that point that everybody's going to try to get through at the same time, and not everybody's going to fit.
Ryan
Moe: Yeah, yep. I mean, that's, that's when you've got a 2 billion bushel carryout. And most of that 2 billion bushel carryout is sitting between I-35. And if you draw a line north of Kearney, Nebraska, straight up and down there, feels like that's where a big chunk of this US corn crop is still sitting. There's your, there's your bushels, and there's your door.
Paul
Neiffer: Was there much sales of new crop corn or beans this week?
Ryan
Moe: Yes. And we were kind of breaking this down with other people earlier this morning and just trying to dissect what was out there. There's a lot of new crop corn bought in areas where you've got farmers that are needing money. There's certain segments of the ag population that just seem to have a tremendous amount of wealth, you can kind of look at that and judge where those areas are by land values. You know how one county's land values will be substantially higher than another county's land values for very similar, well, it's very similar dirt. Well, that's just because there's so many wealthy producers in that area. We'll see those folks didn't sell a whole lot of new crop corn. They just, it's not a price where they want it yet. And they kind of don't need the money because they've got their, you know, wealth as their backstop.
So a lot of that was dependent upon the demographic of the producer in that area. It was what we was where we saw certain areas that bought a lot of new crop this week versus areas that didn't buy a lot of new crop.
Paul
Neiffer: Is there still quite a bit of basis between East and West then? So maybe more sold in the East than in the West on average?
Ryan
Moe: Average, average is always a challenging word. I'm gonna say that the— they're also— it's also early enough to where the the buyers aren't in need yet. So they're not pushing basis, they shouldn't, right? They don't know what's out there yet. They don't know. So they shouldn't really be pushing hard to get new crop bushels bought because they— I mean, natural progression is just going to bring it to them anyway. And so we're not advising anybody push for anything new crop if they don't need to. And so we're not seeing a big spread between those two yet. But that's just because we don't know enough about what's going on with this corn that's just perking through the ground right now.
Chris
Barron: Mm-hmm. Setting basis and flat price never match up on the same day either anyway. So if guys are selling new crop, there hopefully, there's probably no basis opportunity anyway anywhere, is there?
Ryan
Moe: At this point there shouldn't be. I mean, if there is, jump on it. Yeah, right, right. I mean, if there is, jump on it. I mean, I, It's not advice I would give, but that's not necessarily saying that that's not the case someplace. If there's a wildly attractive margin, and there's enough money in the margin of that end user to make it happen, again, back to the comment of keep the plant running, step 1. Step 2, trade effectively, but don't let number 2 ever get in the way of number 1. Right. So keep that thing running. So there might be some places that are just looking to make sure they've got it done, but I wouldn't advise it at this point.
Paul
Neiffer: I sold a little bit last week. Well, not this— 2 weeks ago for $5.46, but that's in southwest Missouri, which is, you know, a decent corn deficit area.
Ryan
Moe: So a little bit.
Chris
Barron: I mean, North Dakota.
Paul
Neiffer: Yeah, definitely.
Ryan
Moe: Yeah.
Chris
Barron: Yeah.
Ryan
Moe: At this point, right. I mean, so I mean, and we'll see. And I mean, there's going to be corn that's pulled west from that Missouri area right now. Because if you're looking at the weather maps, and you're listening to the stories about how bad things are in Oklahoma, parts of Nebraska, Texas, I mean, it's dry. So there's going to be corn that was flowing from west to east this year, go ahead and fill that void in your Missouri area. That's not going to flow there this year, because it's all good.
Chris
Barron: It's all gonna be pointed west because there's still a pretty solid slate of demand out there that needs to get As you guys look at stuff going into the next couple of weeks here, with that being as dry as you're talking and wheat kind of driving the story a little bit on the front end, is that still something that continues a little bit as an aspect of driving the market, or is that something that's going to be old news and get out of the picture?
Ryan
Moe: So, um, like, I'm trying to, you know, there's all these just really awful clichés in grain trading, like Turnaround Tuesday. And I just hate that stuff. I mean, that's just that old school smile and dial, you know, broker that's trying to get a farmer to trade. I just like hate those clichés. But like, you got to be known for something. So I'm trying to go ahead and get my own little phrase brought up, which is, you know, chase a wheat rally and sleep in an alley. Because how many times in the last 5 years have we tried chasing wheat with corn, only to be just miserably disappointed. Yeah. And so when you try to chase a wheat rally with corn and soybeans, it's just that usually ends up with a lot of hard feelings. And it feels like this could actually happen again, because the wheat producers, I mean, they— and the wheat consumers, I mean, they find a way.
I mean, they're— that's an amazing art form of trading wheat and how to get all that stuff done and how to get all that stuff worked out. And I'm not an expert in it by any means. And so I'm just a pig feed trader. So I would say that the wheat market, if it dies, I think you're going to start having corn and soybeans follow the energy market. Because we're so dependent with our biofuels policy, we're going to see corn and beans going back to trading what's going on in the world energy market.
Paul
Neiffer: This almost isn't a wheat rally.
Ryan
Moe: It's still a crude rally.
Paul
Neiffer: I mean, that's—
Ryan
Moe: I believe so.
Paul
Neiffer: A lot of the Wheat's gone up is because it's been tied to crude a little bit.
Ryan
Moe: Yeah. Yeah. So that's, that's my belief is that, you know, in times like that, you know, correlations seem to, you know, dial into one. And what's that number one thing that they're looking at? I mean, it's energy. I mean, it really is right now.
Chris
Barron: Speaking of that, then on the energy side, you know, you've got a lot of the funds pretty long and pretty bought in here on the, on the crop side. I mean, when does that become old news, or does it?
Ryan
Moe: So it's hard to tell, especially this week. Um, this is a really tough week because, you know, here we are Friday afternoon. Are we confirmed that President Trump is going to China on Friday?
Chris
Barron: Uh, I don't know. We'll know Friday.
Ryan
Moe: Like, so that— that— so there you go. So I mean, so this is— this is where, like, the commentary I'm writing right now is anything we say between now and probably Wednesday or Thursday before we have some real definitive knowledge of what's going to happen, until we have definitive knowledge of how things are going to go between President Trump and Xi, we're just wasting our breath, really. So that's going to be one of the biggest market drivers of the year and probably of President Trump's presidency here, is what happens with this negotiation on Friday. And here we are less than a week away. And we don't even know if we don't— we're not even certain if it's happening. Somebody was saying earlier this week that Paul Yemark had had it. There's only like 72% chance that he was going to be there.
I mean, so like, we have to know how that's going to come out before we can start making any longer-term plans. Because if we, we have a whole bunch of soybeans that we've got to execute to China, Ooh, that could get really exciting. But if we kick the can down the road into, you know, new crop '26, '27, then that is a completely different story. So that's, that's, that's the huge unknown coming into this next week.
Chris
Barron:
Paul
Yeager: You said something that's another segue I wanted to have us hit on for a minute is '27. Are you seeing any producers, you know, Paul asked about sales, new crop, I mean, '27 is new crop too. Are you seeing anybody pulling the trigger there? Are there enough people worried about fertilizer prices and some of that stuff that it's not much yet? Or what are you seeing?
Ryan
Moe: We saw '27 hit in a significant way with structured products. Have not seen as much in this most recent run-up to where we bought quite a bit of new crop '26 corn. We didn't see the producers rewarding the rally with '27 in the same way. Mm-hmm.
Chris
Barron: That's a wild one. So out there, and the fertilizer thing is an issue, isn't it?
Ryan
Moe: Yeah, but it's also, it's also, where are we at here? Dec '27 corn's $5.05.
Chris
Barron: Yep. $5.07, isn't it?
Ryan
Moe: $5.05 and a half as I'm closing right now.
Chris
Barron: Okay. You have it more up to date than I do.
Ryan
Moe: Yep, we're looking at her right now on the screen. And if that's your worst sale, great. But I mean, how many times have they gotten to sell, you know, $5? You know, they had, you know, a little stretch here where they could sell $5 cash, $5 cash December '27 corn. So some people are taking it, but then also there was a pretty nice wave of structured products that was done in that March timeframe. That was probably when more 2027 corn was coming up. But that was also, that was also when we thought the Iran war was going to last 2 weeks.
Paul
Neiffer: I was in north central Illinois yesterday riding around looking at the crops and so on. Not a lot of seeding or planting going on. You know, it's still pretty wet. They're supposed to get a lot more moisture next week. Are you hearing anything on that? I know it's still pretty early, but it is middle of May almost.
Ryan
Moe: Not hearing anything that's going to be that— not okay. I think there's, you know, a lot of places started being able to plant corn, what, April 20th? Is that kind of when the, like, the largest swath? And then like 2 days later, there was one producer in Iowa that was already crowing that, you know, yield was going to be reduced because there was some rain in the forecast. If you underestimate American producer at this stage in the crop cycle, that's a, that's a very dangerous game to play. It's the, the American producer is the most prolific producer in the history of the world. They find a way to get it done. And so I definitely don't want to count the Illinois farmer out yet, because they will, they will be able to ram more acres into the ground than we can possibly shake a stick at in a very short period of time.
And just when we think that it's impossible to get it done, the American farmer does find a way to go ahead and get it done. So we're not hearing any grumblings about it yet. But next week at this time, that could start to get to be an issue because you're starting to get out of that ideal window. And your conditions are likely not going to be that great either. You know, Chris, you've forgotten more about agronomy than I'll ever know. But is it still— is it still hold true that planting conditions are far more important than planting date.
Chris
Barron: Absolutely.
Paul
Neiffer: Yeah.
Chris
Barron: I mean, that's the thing, you know, I think there was, at least in our area, what we saw was a lot of people probably in the field maybe 2, 3 days too soon because you get nervous, right? And we had the conversation here kind of jokingly, but kind of not. It's like, let's all go home and watch Netflix for 2 days and then we'll come back. You know, because everything is ready to go, right? Everything's sitting there. And then when you start 2 days too early or 2 days too soon to every place you go after that too, you know, because not every field is the same. So you start where it's the driest and then you go to where it's the wettest and you never get out of unideal situations. And then it— and then what happens is like in our area now, it quit raining.
So now the operations that were planting 3 days too soon are going to be in a situation where they're going to be praying for rain fairly soon, or you get the, you know, the where it was where you mudded some stuff in, you pay a big time penalty for that. So I think, I think it's not just whether it's planted or not, is it planted in ideal conditions or is it planted in subpar conditions? And I think there's quite a bit of stuff this year that, you know, probably went in a little bit subpar, but what, what matters is the entire growing season. That's one little snippet of the entire growing season. So, you know, I had a guy tell me one time, you know, as farmers we're smarter than the market.
In other words, we know more what's going on, but the market's going to trade what the market does in general overall, not in a given area, not in your backyard, not— and, and maybe not even the fundamentals completely. There's probably something else, a Trump tweet or some kind of goofy something, or what the funds are doing. Moves the market way more, it seems like. So, I mean, we can know everything under the sun about agronomy, but the market's going to do what the market wants to.
Paul
Neiffer: We got to realize we may be smarter, but the market's always right.
Ryan
Moe: So, well, that— yeah. So there's— that can be said in a lot of different aspects of life that I might feel like I'm smarter, but I'm not the one that determines whether or not I'm right. Right.
Chris
Barron: Exactly.
Paul
Neiffer: We're not doing the scorecard.
Ryan
Moe: Yeah.
Chris
Barron: Yeah.
Paul
Neiffer: Yeah.
Ryan
Moe: He who keeps score wins.
Chris
Barron: Yeah. Yeah. Well, this has been a good conversation. Is there anything that you'd like to leave producers with, Ryan or Paul, on, on things in the next week, the next week ahead?
Ryan
Moe: Paul, go ahead. I'll let you take—
Paul
Neiffer: Yeah. The only thing, you know, we got the big announcement on SDRP and we got a double up. I actually think there's the potential for another 5% on top, maybe even 10%. Because I just don't think there's going to be much being paid out on Stage 2. Maybe I'm wrong, but that's, that's sort of where I think things may end up at. So we'll see. They still got $3.5 billion to play around with. They're only going to issue $12.5 billion of the $16. So I don't see $3.5 billion on, on Stage 2.
Ryan
Moe: I mean, What you just said there, we're dealing with huge numbers here. Yeah. I mean, whether you're dealing at the local level or the international level or the Washington, D.C. level, these are just massive numbers. And so when you just start thinking about the little tiny decisions, those do add up though. I mean, it's easy to get bogged down with these huge numbers. You know, you got to make sure you're keeping your eye on the big rocks. But, you know, I guess my observation was from this week is, and then into next week, is just continue to go run a great business. And if you do that, I think you're going to be fine. Because I think what we will see, regardless of what happens on Friday the 14th or around in that area, is going to be— excuse me, the 15th— the US is going to come out of this thing a lot better than other foreign competitors. Australia's got it worse than we do.
Brazil's got it worse than we do. Ukraine's got it worse than we do. Argentina's got it worse than we do. And so if you just keep running a great business and doing the best job you can running your business, you will come out of this not unscathed, but you'll be in a lot better shape than a lot of those other producers in other parts of the world are. And that's your competitor, not your neighbor. Yeah.
Chris
Barron: Good, good way to wrap it up. I guess I would, I would use that as a takeaway to emphasize something I've always learned over the years is that We become better business people when there's pressure, whether it's marketing pressure, weather, whatever. If everything was really easy, we aren't that great of business people. We just— if we all we got to do is show— is just wake up and show up, that doesn't make us better.
Ryan
Moe: It's, you know, well, and it's also a very easy business to come in and disrupt. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Just when it starts to get easy, that's when somebody else is going to figure out how easy it is. Yeah, they're going to come up and just steal it.
Chris
Barron: And I think a lot of industries are that way though too, right?
Ryan
Moe: I mean, They all evolve into that eventually.
Chris
Barron: Yeah. I mean, look at what AI's doing and how things are changing in the world and how that's gonna adjust things. And every industry's got disruption. But I think exactly my takeaway, Ryan, is what you said is, is, you know, run, run the business, you know, be, we gotta get, we gotta get the crops planted and we gotta spray stuff and do all those things. But you know, some time in the office and sitting at the desk pays a lot more money than sitting behind the tractor.
Ryan
Moe: Steering wheel and watch it do the $500 an hour jobs, not the $15 an hour jobs.
Chris
Barron: Exactly.
Ryan
Moe: Exactly.
Chris
Barron: So, hey, Ryan, this has been a great conversation. Really appreciate it.
Ryan
Moe: Hey, appreciate the time. Everybody have a good one.
Chris
Barron: Yeah, you bet. Thanks, Paul, for co-hosting. I really appreciate it.
Paul
Neiffer: So good to see you guys.
Chris
Barron: Welcome. All right. Thanks, Ryan. See you guys later.