Sunday night market outlook 1-26-2020

Chris

Barron: And it all comes down to this. Two on, two out, bottom of the ninth. The Farmers lead by one.

Duane

Lowery: Full count, here comes the play at the plate, and it's the Ag View Pitch.

Chris

Barron: Welcome everybody to another episode of the Ag View Pitch, and we are heading into a new market week. And you've got Chris Bairn and Dwayne Lowery. How are you today, Dwayne?

Duane

Lowery: Good, Chris, um, how are you doing?

Chris

Barron: Great, great. Had a good time at the Farm Futures Business Summit. It was great to be there and hang out with you and, and listen to some of the speakers. I think it was a pretty good conference.

Duane

Lowery: It was a very good conference. A lot of good speakers, a lot of good conversations that take place during the breaks with different producers there, and it was a very good event.

Chris

Barron: I think so. So With that said, you know, there were some folks that are talking markets and stuff. And, and as we kind of finished up the week and looked at the screen, we had some red on the screen there again this week. And I think, you know, we, if we would have just finished, you know, kind of flat on corn at the end of the week, we probably would have been slightly higher on corn, wouldn't we have for the week?

Duane

Lowery: Yeah, we finished lower on the week, but not down very much. We, I think for the week in in general, we were only off about 2 cents, I think, for the week. I think it's also important, important to put out that in context. On Thursday, you had the highest settlement you had since the 17th of October, and basis levels are firm and things of this nature. So Friday was maybe a disappointment, but in context, you know, you, you're, you're up here at the highest levels you've been here for a couple of months. So I don't, I don't think the price action is bad. We don't want to see Friday's weakness build a lot of momentum, which I don't think it will. But the bean market is, you know, looks more troubling because we've had such a deep, deep correction here after, you know, getting the highest cash prices farmers have had in a year and a half, almost 2 years.

At the end of December and hovering up there for much of the first part of January, you know, the depth of this correction in beans is somewhat disappointing. I'm not sure I have a good reason for you. I don't think it's fundamentally driven. I think it's more a situation of punishing buyers from the— after getting the US-China trade deal, buyers came in. I think we're in the process of liquidating them out, and I think that liquidation process is pretty mature.

Chris

Barron: Yeah, on, on the corn, you know, if you look at Dec '20, I showed a chart in my presentation at the Farm Futures Business Summit on kind of where our growers are at on our Profit Manager program in terms of sort of an average quote-unquote price that's needed to maybe possibly get started on some marketing in that you know, that $4.10 range on the Dec '20 would, would get a lot of the people that we've worked with so far sort of in the black to maybe start making some sales, which would cover, you know, all of their expenses essentially on the corn side of things at least. What, what's your thought there? I mean, odds of getting there, or, you know, any, any projections there, and, and, you you know, are we, are we wild and crazy for starting to plug some sales in there? What's your thought and your perspective on that?

Duane

Lowery: I think the odds of getting an opportunity to price Dec '20 corn at $4.10 or higher are very, very good. I would fully expect that, that opportunity to be presented. In terms of is it right to be looking for to make sales, I think that you have to say that it is right to be looking at making some sales at profitable levels, number one. I think number two, you have to be concerned about a larger number of acres. You have to be concerned about carryout levels rising under that additional acres if yields are— go back to something more normal, with normal being defined the as the last 4 or 5 years, absent last year. And, uh, so I think that is a threat, but it's not a given that that's the final scenario that we're dealing with.

Uh, we may very well be dealing with a situation where, uh, China, uh, commits to taking their, uh, WTO quantity for corn, which would be 8 or 9 million tons if they did that in this marketing year, which I expect that they will, that is not in the current balance sheet. And all of a sudden carryout then gets down to— well, you got 8 times 4, it's $320 million. That puts carryout under $1.6 billion, $1.5 billion something. You do the same thing in the next marketing year, and suddenly those extra acres don't seem quite as burdensome. Also, um, in order to get the burdensome scenario, you have to get, you know, and, uh, the upper parameters of yields we've seen in the last 5 years. And, uh, it's certainly possible, but never a given, but it's something that we have to plan on. Um, from a technical perspective, getting Dec corn back to $4.20 or $4.30 is not an unreasonable possibility.

Probably needs a little bit of help with old crop corn moving up. Probably need to see some confirmation that China is going to step in and buy that type of quantity of old crop corn. But if and when that happens, that balance sheet outlook looks quite a bit different than it looks like now. I mean, that's in a 2-year combined of 640 million bushels off the balance sheet that is not off there now. So what I'm saying is The threat of the larger acres is the rising carryout. The rising carryout could be offset by export demand from the U.S. So I think that's something to keep in mind. I'm not saying that's a reason not to sell corn at those levels, but I am saying that it's a reason to still have some optimism that you will get that opportunity.

Chris

Barron: Yeah, I, I think from my perspective, what I like to see people start thinking about this time of year is you know, some getting this perspective on where the price opportunities might lay. And are you close to your, your margin target, which hopefully is at a profitable level. Sometimes sales have to be made around that range, or maybe even get started at a level you'd like to be higher at. But, you know, when we look at it, to me, it's all about putting some offers in, because if you don't have those targets in place, you know, you're talking, you know, we could get through that 410, but if you don't have some, you know, targets in there to sell, we could be there for like 5 minutes, right? And, you know, I mean, you get there, but you're not there very long a lot of times.

Duane

Lowery: Yeah, I definitely would advocate having sales orders in, whether that's futures or options or whether that's, you know, cash contracts, HTAs, or whatever. I definitely would advocate having those sales in. I'd even have those sales in, you know, at whatever level you wanted to between $4.10 and $4.30 and, and just put them in if those are levels that work, which I would imagine those are levels that work at least for starting sales anyway. Yeah, I would definitely advocate that for the same reason. Like you said, the amount of time that you spend there often isn't very long. And the other thing that happens is Once you get there, um, there's usually some headline story there that causes you pause or second thoughts about making that sale. And during that pause and second thought, that's the time it backs off and all of a sudden the sale is gone.

So I'm, I'm definitely an advocate of having the orders in place.

Chris

Barron: Yeah. And on the soybean side of that same discussion, then, you know, we've settled back so much and we were getting close, um, You know, our numbers unfortunately are closer to 10 on the soybean side when we really look at true cost of production on average. And I know we've got growers that, that are at this point yet probably profitable on soybeans, but on the same token, we have more people that we work with that probably need another 50 cents again back on soybeans. And so, um, what about on soybeans? Probably the same thing. I mean, I'd be an advocate for putting some offers in there too. Do you have any, any qualms with that?

Duane

Lowery: No, but my price level targets on soybeans would probably be, you know, $10 and above. I don't have any interest in making sales here. And, uh, if you are at these kind of prices, I'm not sure that the farmer is going to plant, um, as many beans as maybe the marketplace would like. We have to keep in mind that the soybean carryout was cut in more than half in the last marketing year. We also have to keep in mind that if China lives up to their agreement on this Phase 1, we haven't even begun to feel any of that in the marketplace because the marketplace is largely driven by a naysayer sentiment regarding that, and most people don't think it's going to happen. If it does happen, it's a lot different situation than what the marketplace is currently trading.. And I think I'm one that from day one believed that they will fulfill this agreement and it would be a big deal.

I'm still in that camp.

Chris

Barron: So you're one in 10 on that, Duane.

Duane

Lowery: I think one out of 10 people are in that camp.

Chris

Barron: I think you're on the outside of that. You're on the opposite side of the boat. It's leaning heavily the other way. I think it seems like, you know, so many people are As you said, just don't trust China, don't believe they're going to step forward, think they're going to buy whiskey or some other kind of crazy food source, quote unquote food source. But I don't— like you've said in the past, I don't know how they get to that dollar amount. But I think at the same time, people think they're going to step away and not honor their side of the deal.

Duane

Lowery: Well, you're correct in thinking that's how people are assessing, that's how people think. But I think that also sets the stage that when they find out that it's different than that, there's a market reaction ahead. And using your analogy where everybody's on one side of the boat, I just remind people to know what happens when all the Boy Scouts are on one side of the canoe.

Chris

Barron: Right.

Duane

Lowery: That capsizes.

Chris

Barron: Right.

Duane

Lowery: So I'll stick with my viewpoint. I'm very comfortable with that. I am totally convinced China will adhere to it because they only made this deal because they had a greater vision of, of their need for making the deal, and that was to eventually get the tariffs removed and to help their overall economy. And I think that they are, uh, made a lot of concessions to get to this deal, and I think their, their goal was not necessarily to get to this deal but this deal was necessary to get to what they want their goal to be. And if they don't fulfill these commitments, they're not going to get the next phase. And I think that they desperately want that next phase.

Chris

Barron: One of the other things too, Duane, you know, and being a nighttime Netflix viewer, I've been watching this series on pandemic. And ironically, you know, it starts getting you a little concerned and you start realizing, you know, in flu season and what a pandemic does and how catastrophic it can be, not only to the people but also to the economy and stuff. And, and now we're starting to hear a lot with this coronavirus and stuff going on in China. Is there anything to that, or what, what are you hearing there?

Duane

Lowery: It's been a market topic in discussion the last few days. I think that we're still in the early stages. We don't know exactly what we're dealing with. We don't— can't speak super confidently on it. At the same token, the first outbreak of that in China was found in the middle part, latter part of December, and there's been, I think, around 2,000 cases reported, and there's been around 50 deaths reported, and maybe then we also have that their Lunar New Year, Chinese New Year festival this coming week, that in some locations travel is restricted. That might hamper the flow somewhat. But after the next 2 weeks, after we've had all this traveling taking place in China, people return to their home, then we'll have a better handle on just what it is we're dealing with.

But in today's instant information age and everything's available on social media, that tends to fuel an expansion of fear much more quickly and, and often when it's not necessarily warranted. And I question whether it's warranted here just from the standpoint— people want to compare it to SARS, which is something that happened back in 2002 and 2003. At that time, that SARS virus got up to a 60 to 80% mortality rate. The mortality rate right now is something less than 4%, maybe it's 2%, but let's just say it's, it's less than 4%. I think that's a huge difference. The CDC has kind of downplayed this as far as the US reaction is concerned. Some of the global health organizations have also declined to elevate their threat level to a more of a global health emergency type of situation.

And so I think there are scientists that are well into this process of evaluating and learning about this and eval— trying to determine what the future holds. And I would say that that's somewhat downplayed. In terms of markets, to the extent that this is a problem, I think it's a problem for the travel industry. Both inside China and maybe globally. But inside China, it's a travel problem, it's a restaurant problem, it's a hotel problem, it's a tourist problem. So it may impact them economically, but if people's not eating at a restaurant, they're still eating at home. I don't see a threat or a reaction here that's justified in any agricultural market whatsoever. Possibly there's a threat to— on the Dow side and the stock side because of certain sectors, but even so, that— I'm not sure that's a long-lived threat. So I don't see any impact on it agriculturally.

I know that people have been trying to talk about that the last few days, but again, I'll go back to Thursday. Thursday's settlement in corn was the highest since October 17th, I think it was. So the highest in 3 months. And, um, um, that day on Thursday and the day before, the marketplace wanted to use this coronavirus storyline as a reason to be negative. And so Friday, the market's down, and we blame the coronavirus for it. And certainly that was a talking point. But I think that it's also point— important to point out that soybeans have been involved in a correction process. Maybe this last week's trade has been the culmination of that. The corn market had just, like I said, had a nice run on it with virtually no correction. And so, so if they're down, you know, Friday, and then maybe they get a little bit of follow-through, you know, early this week, I don't see that as a problem.

And I don't see a fundamental baseline reason for markets to retreat here to any degree from where it is right now.

Chris

Barron: What about— I'm kind of throwing darts at the bean market here. So you can hope you can try to knock them down here for me, make me feel better. But what about South American weather and the crop coming on there? And then, you know, access to supplies there as opposed to here? Any, any comments on that?

Duane

Lowery: I would say their production is coming along fine. I don't think they've had any major threats, any long-lasting threats. I think the forecast is not that troublesome at different times in the— like even last week there were a few days where there were some concerns about day, you know, 11 or day 15 forward, but that doesn't mean that's how it's actually going to pan out. And the only, the only real threat that's occurred down there weather-wise was was with their safrinha corn crop that's been delayed in its planting, which might impact yields, what might impact acreage. So maybe some reduction there. Otherwise, I don't think that we've seen anything that's problematic as far as that is concerned.

Chris

Barron: Okay, um, I guess another thing I want to ask you about, and this is looking at the 2020 crop, but And correct me if I'm wrong, if I— in case I heard it wrong, but didn't Informa come out with like a combined corn-soybean of like $179? Is that right?

Duane

Lowery: Um, I don't remember exactly what the figure was— figures were, but they did come out and there was some, uh, question about that combined figure.

Chris

Barron: And like $86 million on soybeans? Yes, like that.

Duane

Lowery: It was, I think it was around $93-something on corn and $86-something on beans, I believe.

Chris

Barron: Yeah, what's your, what's your take on that? Any take on that?

Duane

Lowery: I'm thinking I don't have a reason to argue with them. I don't know what that breakdown is going to be. I'm not sure producers have fully made their decisions yet. I think they're at different times from harvest forward. There's been times where producers thought that they might want to increase their bean acreage. And there's a— you talk to another producer and they're gonna be— they're pretty strong about wanting to stay with corn. And I think a lot of those decisions are gonna be made— not— they wonder— they're not gonna be made until they see their February insurance rates. I, I think that's still something that people would like to see before they make those decisions. And I think that the price ratio of corn-beans right now is certainly not buying any bean acres, and I think there's a case can be made that, that the 86 million is not enough.

And so I think the marketplace might still have a desire to buy some acres. And as far as the corn is concerned, I think there are places that, because beans just don't work out well enough, they're probably still committed to corn, but they're somewhat nervous of that based on the storyline that you brought up early in this conversation about larger acreage. And so I think farmers have been nervous about that ever since last summer, that 2020 would have a big increase in corn acreage. And, but my sense is farmers have not made that, finalized those decisions yet. How do you feel the farmer is reacting to those decisions?

Chris

Barron: Well, I, I don't think there's a lot of reaction yet, and that's my my question and why I bring up that I think we need to be at least looking at that, that margin target and putting some offers in to take a little risk off the table going into 2020. That's kind of why I was asking you those questions in the beginning, because it just, it looks to me like there's, there's a threat out there potentially of, of, you know, if we do have good weather, the market You know, 2019, we had all— we had darts thrown at us all year. Actually, we had bombs thrown at us all year, it seemed like. And the market reacted for a while. And then supposedly, we still grew a pretty massive crop in, in the face of some of the most adversity I think that I've ever seen in my farming career.

And so it just makes me think that, you know, when we got price levels where we're at, and if you take your 5-year yield average, and do the math on it, there are ways to take risk off the table right now. There was able to do that in beans a while ago, not so much now. So I think I'd lean more, more heavily towards the corn. I know in the South there's a lot of cotton guys that we work with that are going to be switching more heavily over to corn, and, and so there's going to be more corn acres down there. Conversely, in the North, I think You know, if you know, there's a lot of guys up there that haven't even started harvesting corn yet and it's muddy underneath and there's a foot of snow. So, you know, what do you do? You know, those could be bean acres then or a bunch more prevent plant, you know.

So I don't know, to me there's just so much up in the air carried forward from last year's confusion that I think some of that confusion is going to carry forward into 2020, in my opinion. I guess. Well, that's my take.

Duane

Lowery: I would say this, Chris, I totally respect your view on margin targets and having price offers in at those levels. I get that. I'm totally behind that. I can't bring myself to recommend producers make sales right here, right now at this level, because I think for many producers it's really not a profitable level, not unless they get, you know, some yields that they can't fully bank on. And until I see the crop insurance rate I'm sitting here thinking, what's the advantage of making a sale, uh, during the, uh, once the crop insurance rate is, is set, if I want revenue protection, I can get a product for 95%, uh, protection. And I think that cost of paying for that insurance product is going to be less than the cost of making sales at sub-profitable levels. And, um, uh, I'm just not willing to make those sales recommendations at current values.

I'm going to at least wait until I have a handle on what that crop insurance rate is going to be, and that's going to be determined during the next month. So I'm not gonna make any sales recommendations on either corn or beans right now. I think that based on the calls and emails that I've had over the last, I'll say, 60 days, and some, many of them recently I think producers are facing situations with their lenders where the lenders aren't willing to even finalize their 2020 line of credit for inputs. And, and I think that until— I think part of that is driven— they'd like to see what this insurance—

Chris

Barron: well, Dwayne, I've seen some lenders put $350 on the cash flow projection at their 5-year yield average. And that really makes it look bad. And until the farmer can prove that their risk is off the table to the, their level of profitability, which in a lot of cases, that's 50 cents, probably. And so that, you know, and I'm not saying you go out and sell a whole bunch, but I'm just saying, I think a lot of lenders want to see some risk off the table. Before they're completely comfortable. It's not to say they won't renew the line of credit.

In most cases, I think they will, but I think on the same token, and they can't make, you know, because fiduciary, you know, and rules and regulations, they can't, they can't necessarily give growers advice, but they can just not loan them, you know, renew their line of credit in some cases, you know, and maybe delay that until they see that Farmers have taken some risk off the table, and that was my only point. I think, you know, some level of participation above that $4.10 range, having some targets in for maybe 10 or 15% to get started to show the lender that you're on— excuse me— that you're on it. I think that's kind of what a lot of the lenders are looking for. Because there's a lot of operations with nothing priced.

Duane

Lowery: Well, I don't have a problem with people having offers in from $4.10 on up as a starting point and things of this nature. I'm not willing to make those sales now. And in terms of making a sale now being correlated with taking risk off the table, if you're selling at a loss, I don't know how you've taken risk off the table. I would look at crop insurance program as being my, my floor, my benchmark of what risk is. And if I'm not comfortable with my risk per se, then I'm going to look to a 95% revenue protection policy. To me, that's a better choice and a cheaper mode of protection than selling bushels at a loss and that you're not going to get to market again. That doesn't make sense to me. If things are that bad, then you have to wonder why you're even planting the seed to begin with.

You know, I've been around this business 40 years, and I'm telling you, the marketplace is saturated with fear and pessimism. And, and that's not just— I'm not talking about the Chicago markets, I'm talking from ground level on up. The banker is completely dominated by fear. The producer level has been dominated by fear and frustration since last summer, okay? And especially for the 2020 season. And just like you pointed that, that when I commented about the optimism towards China, here we get a China trade agreement and it's 90% of the people are pessimistic about the trade agreement ever coming to pass. What, at what point, on what sphere of the landscape do you point to and say, oh, there's optimism there, or there's no pessimism, you know, there? I say that the place is dominated with fear. And like I said, I've been in the business 40 years.

You don't have a marketplace saturated with fear and discouragement at this level that turns out to be a top. This is not your best marketing year price of the 2020 season. It can't be with this level of fear and saturation— fear and depression saturated in the marketplace. And I'm going to stick with that as a benchmark reason not to make a sale here. And I'm going to lean on the fact that until I get that crop insurance price determined in the next, which is only the next 30 days, I'm going to lean on that for a reason not to make a sale. And then I'm going to go back and lean on the values of Dec corn over the last 4 or 5 years. And every single year I was given an opportunity to sell at better than this level. And I was given that opportunity after the crop insurance deadline. So I'm not going to make that sale now, and I'm not going to advocate that sale now.

I will advocate the offers above the market at levels that are profitable. I'm not going to advocate people make sales now just to get started or just to get risk off the table. I don't see the prudence in that, especially given the backdrop where the marketplace is dominated with fear right now.

Chris

Barron: Yeah, and I, and I think as time goes on, we get through this next week or this coming, you know, this week we're in now, we get through this week, um, and then next week we start in that price discovery period. I think we'll, we'll throw a teaser out there. We'll have some conversations around, you know, where, where that insurance number starts and then kind of where it goes throughout the month and, and kind of talk about some strategies utilizing the insurance because I'm 100% with you on the insurance side of things, um, and we can kind of talk about the price points of the different levels of coverage and the value that they bring, because I'm, I'm thinking there's some, some topics there that we'll definitely need to discuss.

Duane

Lowery: Well, I think we could have a whole podcast just on crop insurance and philosophy of buying an 80% policy versus buying a 95% policy. And if you want revenue protection, there is no better way to get revenue protection. People, you know, uh, step back a little bit when they see the price tag on that insurance, But that insurance protection for that price tag is still cheaper and easier to do than any type of marketing plan that will get you that same level.

Chris

Barron: Dwayne, what is, what is taking you from $85 to $95? What would that be on a per acre basis?

Duane

Lowery: Well, I don't have the insurance stuff in front of me.

Chris

Barron: Just throw a rough number.

Duane

Lowery: I don't know. I'll say it's maybe as much as, you know, $15 or $20 an acre more.

Chris

Barron: And what if it's $20? That's only 10 cents a bushel. Exactly.

Duane

Lowery: So I mean, you can't go out and buy puts to get that kind of protection, right? People don't realize how cheap that policy is. It may, it may look high per acre, but it's not really high when you consider the value.

Chris

Barron: You gotta look at it in terms of a cost per bushel and then the value that its protection brings. Well, we'll have a whole conversation about that here in the near term.

Duane

Lowery: For sure. The other thing, over a 10-year history, that policy pays out more frequently than an 80% policy.

Chris

Barron: Right.

Duane

Lowery: And, you know, there's studies that would suggest that if you did that every single year, in the long run, considering your payback, you're— it's actually the cheapest policy you could buy.

Chris

Barron: Well, it's the most valuable, I would— is how I would say it. I wouldn't— I'd say it's the most valuable protection. It's my analogy always on that, on those higher levels of coverage, is always like, you know, you can buy a used Buick or you can buy a Cadillac and you're going to get what you pay for. So, you know, it's, it's, it's just a higher quality vehicle to protect risk for sure.

Duane

Lowery: Another thing that I want to say along this same storyline here is cash corn basis is still firm. Like I said Thursday, that was the highest futures had been since mid-October. And export basis has firmed. And there still is a highly probable chance that China's gonna take a sizable chunk of US corn. And there's also indications that the US corn export opportunities over the next few months is going to increase quite a bit from what we've had before based on availability of, of competitor supplies as they were more front-end loaded, uh, during their, their marketing season. When, when we were backing off on ours during the unknown aspects of the 2019 production from about mid-May forward. So I think the landscape looks a lot different than what the majority of the people are buying into.

So you, if corn basis at the export market is continuing to ramp up, and it probably gained 4 cents last week, There has to be a reason for that, and it certainly can't be one of poor demand. That is not our reason. And if you looked at global demand, global demand has been very, very good. And U.S. demand was— export demand was harmed a lot. But I personally believe, and I said so in the Real Time at the time, that our exports were cut back and the desire to export out of the U.S. was cut back. As other locations became more of a preferred place to export from, because I think there was a sense in the US that why export US supplies and then be forced to import them in the next marketing year, which was a dominant theme until probably mid-July.

And I think that during that window from between 1st of April when the river opened and created problems for the river navigation system, and then the problems with the late planting and all the fears associated with that, from there until mid-July, I think that the exporters were inclined to not want to export corn out of the US. They were driven to export out of other locations, and proof of that was seen when you saw that Brazil and Argentina, how much— they were front-end loaded on their corn export program. And then that was followed up in Argentina with export tariffs in December to protect their domestic supply. So, you know, I think that a lot of things happened last year to hurt our exports that were not driven by demand but were yet instead driven by a decision to not export as aggressively out of the US for all the reasons I described.

So I think that the landscape opportunities ahead of us are better than what last year showed us for those reasons. And I think you have to add into that, you know, 320 million bushels of corn to export to China as being a highly likely development this year that was— is not part of the current balance sheets.

Chris

Barron: Yep, I would echo what you're saying on basis strength to this, this last week. We've got some emails from some of our clients and stuff, and the same thing, like in our local area in Cedar Rapids, there, there were offers on Saturday, quick ship bids for, you know, 8 over. And then the other thing too is what you see posted and what you can get on a phone call a lot of times is another 5 to, and then in some cases, 10 cents depending on what you're willing to take them. So these are basis levels are pretty much higher than I've almost ever seen before on some of these spot, spot quick ship bids.

Duane

Lowery: And the reality is that in most regions, other than a day or two scattered, have you had a better December, January in terms of weather-wise to be able to, for the farmer to go out there and decide he's going to, you know, load corn and ship corn? I don't think he could have had a better year. So here you've had the weather and the environment entice the farmer to make the sale. You had the— all the negativity in the place, including the bankers pushing some to liquidate inventory and get it off the inventory sheet and into the cash side of the— on the balance sheet. And all of these things happening, and yet basis is still very firm. I still think there's a story there.

Chris

Barron: Yeah, it's definitely a head-scratcher. The basis can't lie to you anyway, can it? So it tells you kind of a story. But any final thoughts, Dwayne? We'll get things wrapped up here at the, at the risk of having something major. Any final thoughts?

Duane

Lowery: Not really. I would just say that the bean market has had a very sizable correction and from a technical perspective, it's extremely mature. You have the negativity in the marketplace, and the last headline to drive it is the coronavirus storyline. You have the corn market that has performed well. The spreads have been performing well. I didn't even mention that. There's a story right there, but I won't go into it. But the spreads are painting a quality picture. And a constructive picture. The technical conditions have been constructive, and Friday's sell-off in corn may prove to be only, you know, a 1 or 2 day event, with Friday being day 1.

I don't think we have to see a lot of follow-through, and I would suspect that to the extent that the coronavirus is impacting agricultural markets or did impact them on Friday, I think we will find stabilization and some recovery here very quickly this week. And I think that the outlook here is much better than the prevailing sentiment suggests.

Chris

Barron: Sounds good, Duane. Thanks a lot. And for all of you who are listening, if you're new listeners that just started listening to us after being at the Farm Futures Business Summit, Duane does a daily newsletter. And so, you know, make sure you listen to the closing remarks here in the podcast. And be sure to reach out to Duane if you're interested in getting that newsletter, because I think it's a pretty valuable commentary every day that kind of keeps you up to date with what's going on in the markets. And also, you know, like you said, like we said, Duane, I think we'll have some conversations on insurance and some of the strategies and stuff tying together the marketing and strategies with managing the risk. So with that, Dwayne, it was a great conversation and we'll look forward to talking to you next time.

Duane

Lowery: All right, thank you, Chris.

Chris

Barron: You bet. And thanks everybody for listening to the Ag View Pitch, and we will catch you next time.

Narrator: If you haven't already, be sure to check out our recently revamped website at AgViewSolutions.com. There's now a useful tools tab where you can download some free tools that Chris has developed to better help your operation in 2020 and beyond, and you can learn more under the consulting tab about what we do. If you have any questions, please give Chris a call at 319-533-5703 or email at cbarron@agviewsolutions.com. If you want to talk marketing, shoot Duane Lowery an email at duanelowery@agviewsolutions.com.

Duane

Lowery: @nedentz.net.

Narrator: Be sure to ask him about his daily market commentary. Subscribe and share the podcast to stay up to date on the most recent podcast. Have a great rest of your week, everyone, and we will catch you next time on the Eggview Pitch.