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Episode 512 ·

Weekly market outlook June 26-30th: weather and civil war in Russia

Hosted by Chris Barron · with Joe Vaclavik

About This Episode

The drought monitor in late June 2023 looked as bad as it did at the same date in 2012, and a crop condition survey of customers said the same thing. Prices that sat below cost of production three or four weeks earlier had rallied to levels that should make money almost everywhere. Customers split. Some sold up to a percentage they were comfortable with because of their crop insurance, others would not commit bushels against a crop they expected to lose.

Demand does not matter yet, because the national corn yield is not knowable within 40 bushels an acre. Even so, Vaclavik puts USDA's new crop corn demand 400 million bushels too high, with the export and feed numbers both overstated, and that gap widens if prices keep climbing. If rains arrive and he is right about demand, new crop corn somewhere between $5 and $6 could turn out to be a fair price.

A subscriber asked whether he was crazy to be 30 to 40 percent sold on 2024 corn in the middle of a drought. His ROI penciled at 25 percent. The answer was that 25 percent is historically fantastic, so he is not crazy, he is doing business. Selling 2013 corn during the 2012 rally worked the same way at lower prices. Forward marketers hit singles and go three for four. Hold and hope farmers hit home runs and go one for four.

You're not crazy, you're just doing business.

Joe Vaclavik

Key Takeaways

  1. The drought monitor matched 2012 at the same date and a customer survey confirmed it. Prices that were under cost of production a month earlier had rallied to profitable levels.

  2. Yield is not knowable within 40 bushels an acre in late June, so demand analysis waits. USDA's new crop corn demand still looks 400 million bushels too high.

  3. Put options, including short dated ones, set a floor without committing bushels. Strong insurance coverage does much of the same job.

  4. A 25 percent ROI on 2024 corn is historically fantastic. Selling 2013 corn during the 2012 rally made the same point at a lower price.

  5. Forward marketers hit singles and go three for four. Hold and hope farmers hit home runs and go one for four. The ones who need the cash flow tend to market better year in and year out.

  6. The mistake is rewriting your whole approach because of what happened last year. Consistency averages out. A new method every season does not.

Full Transcript

Chris

Barron: Thank you for listening to the Weekly Market Outlook. It is our pleasure to bring an industry-leading market analyst to provide you with the most value possible in your farm business. Please reach out anytime by emailing cbarron@agviewsolutions.com. Welcome everybody to another episode of the Ag View Pitch. We're heading into a new marketing week, actually the last week of June, and we are lucky enough to have with us Joe Vaklovic today. Joe, how's it going?

Joe

Vaclavik: I'm good. How are you, Chris? Thanks for having me.

Chris

Barron: Doing good. Doing good. One thing I do want to mention before we get rolling here is we do have a subscriber-only video, kind of like what, kind of like what you do, Joe. It's called 19 Minutes, comes out the 9th, the 19th, and the 29th. And so just want to make sure that everybody that wants to get a chance to check that out. We got some really cool stuff on there. I'll be having a special bonus episode coming out this coming week on just machinery and equipment rates and some of the things we're seeing there with costs. So excited to have that out. And we'll have the signup in the show notes here for the podcast. So, but with that said, let's get rolling here with the conversation, Joe. So I I'm going to start with weather. That seems to be one thing that's kind of driving, and I know there's a couple other things we're going to hit on here quick that are a big deal.

But let's start with weather. Talk a little bit about the volatility we saw last week and, and how maybe farmers should be thinking about what a weather market means and, and opportunities and challenges with that.

Joe

Vaclavik: Okay, so we should probably timestamp this. We're recording Saturday morning at 7:30, right? Yep. There may be some things that change with the weather and the patterns and whatever between now and the time some people listen to this. In any case, so Thursday and Friday you saw some pressure in the markets. I think it was mostly due to weather. There was— there were some better rain chances in the forecast. As I look at the weather this morning here in real time, again, Saturday morning, you've got kind of a band of storms moving across parts of Nebraska, a good chunk of South Dakota, it looks like southern part of North Dakota, southern Minnesota. Looks like this thing's going to make its way closer to your neighborhood in the eastern part of Iowa, maybe into Illinois.

So I don't know how these rains have performed or will perform, but that could be key to what happens in the markets come Sunday night into Monday. I'm just looking at the models here this morning. The Euro looks a little bit drier than it did going home on Friday this morning. But again, that could be different by the time you guys see this. Bigger picture, I mean, we've got a drought, right? I mean, it's the real deal to me, the way that it looks. You pull up the drought monitor, it looks just as bad, if not worse, than it did at the same point in 2012. You talk to farmers about crop conditions, Shay, you guys, and I helped you guys with this a little bit. We ran a crop condition survey of customers and people told us, you know, it's bad. This is the real deal, right? So until we have some sort of, I'm not gonna say it's too late to fix this.

I'd probably say you take the top end off yields for sure. But it's the real deal. And I don't know that the market's necessarily over yet unless you see a big time shift in the pattern. And I don't know if that's out there quite yet.

Chris

Barron: So, If we, you know, and let's just kind of think about some possibilities, you know, moving forward in the next couple of weeks, you know, obviously weather markets create a ton of volatility. They also create, in my opinion, they create some pretty good opportunities a lot of times. And but the hard part is, is, you know, how do you market when, you know, it looks like your crop is going backwards and you don't want to be oversold, but on the same token, you need to take advantage of that. What are some of the things that you're hearing from your clients or some of the things that you think are things that guys really need to keep in the top of their mind when, when we're in the middle of this volatility? And, you know, and then you got the weather challenge from a practical standpoint on the crop.

Joe

Vaclavik: It's very, very difficult. I mean, this, this is not an easy thing to do, to look in your backyard at a drought, but at the same time, look at a market that's rallied substantially. I mean, we were in a really ugly spot from a grain market price standpoint prior to this drought setting in. You know, I mean, you were to levels that were below the cost of production just, what, 3 or 4 weeks ago?

Chris

Barron: Yeah.

Joe

Vaclavik: And now you're back to levels that should make money for everybody pretty much across the board. That being said, from customers, I've heard a lot of different things. I've heard some customers tell me, Joe, I'm okay selling. You know, up to a certain percentage because of my crop insurance. And I understand how all that works. And other people are not interested in doing that, not interested in making sales because of the lack of crop potential or the perceived losses that haven't yet been realized. But I'll take their word for it that, you know, we're going to have a really ugly looking crop. So a lot of people are seeking flexibility. Flexibility. And by flexibility, what does that mean? Well, you buy options or something along those lines, right? And I'm not opposed to that.

If you're seeking flexibility, if you're not comfortable making cash sales, then yeah, own some put options, even short-dated stuff, whatever. It's not a recommendation, but I mean, if you're seeking that sort of flexibility where you want a floor but you don't want to commit physical bushels, you want to keep the upside open, you think we're going to $8 because this drought's the real deal, then I mean, that's the obvious and simple way to maintain flexibility.

Chris

Barron: A lot of that has to do too with, you know, and we've talked about this in your subscriber-only videos a lot with the insurance condition that you have, or, you know, solution that you have in your back pocket. You know, for some, some operations really have a robust insurance coverage, which is essentially the ultimate put. Yeah. And, you know, and then you got some that maybe aren't as well covered. So that, I think that has a lot to do with it. As, as you think through this stuff and work with producers on it. There's a whole other side to this, this equation that I think creates some threat, and that's the demand side of the, of the whole deal. Because it always seems like, if I go back in history in my 35 to 40 years, however you want to count my years of, of playing Mr.

Farmer, and I've looked at all of the years where we've had weather markets versus demand markets and everything, it seems like, you know, when this thing goes away, all of a sudden you wish you would've done some things that you didn't do. Um, because I think a lot of times there's just enough threat, enough concern that sometimes we don't do as much. If we do a good thing, we don't do enough of it. It seems like— talk a little bit about the demand because that, that's gonna have to be in play here too. And it sounds like there's some issues there.

Joe

Vaclavik: Uh, my view at this point, um, would be, okay, a couple things. Demand doesn't matter right now. Nobody cares about demand because we don't have a clue what the supply side is going to look like. And that yield number on your balance sheet, whether it's corn, soybeans, whatever, that's your big swing item. And we don't know at this point, we don't know what the national corn yield is going to be within 40 bushels an acre. I mean, you don't, we don't have a clue. You have absolutely no clue. And you could say the same thing about soybeans too, to a lesser extent in terms of the numbers. But you know, on a percentage basis, I mean, you just, you don't have a clue what the yield's gonna be. So therefore the demand stuff just takes a backseat.

When I look at what USDA has projected for, let's say corn demand, they're overstating old crop demand by, I don't know, 50, 60, 70, 80 million bushels, which is not a ton. Their ethanol number's too high. New crop corn demand is overstated by 400 million bushels in my view right now. The export number's way too high. I think the feed number's too high. Given some of this biofuel stuff, you might be able to argue that the ethanol number's too high. And if the prices continue to go up, that 400 or 500 that I mentioned, 300, maybe 300, maybe 400, maybe 500, that could turn into a much larger number if the prices continue to rally. So there's big-time demand implications, but in this sort of crop scare environment where again, you just, you have absolutely no idea what the crop's gonna be. The demand stuff is, is gonna take a backseat until we know a little bit more. Mm-hmm.

Chris

Barron: So with that said, I'll come back to another kind of question then too, is the funds are sitting there watching that. They understand the demand side of the picture, but that's kind of what gives us the volatility, gives us the opportunities. And it seems like, you know, we just talked about weather in the beginning. And you got all these computers driving the market anymore, it feels like anyway, because it's, you know, violently up, violently down. And, you know, so you got the algorithms doing a lot of this, but how much staying power do the funds have? I mean, or are they just all going to run away when, when the conditions do change? Or do you, do you see them having some staying power?

Joe

Vaclavik: Well, it's not a when, it's, it's, it's, it's an if. I mean, do the conditions change or not? During the past, like if you go back to like say pre-2020 when we were in kind of those dog days from like '14 through '19, a lot of times what you'd see was like the funds would flip their position this time of year. They'd maybe be short and then maybe they'd get long for 3 weeks, 4 weeks, maybe 100,000 contracts or more. And then they, they would find out that, oh, this is just a crop scare event and not a crop loss or failure event. And they'd be back short again by late summer into harvest. You know, that situation is possible. The other situation is like a 2012 situation where you rally clear through July into maybe the early part of August.

Maybe you post some sort of short-term peak, but you maintain yourself at much higher prices really through the fall, which presents a lot of different scenarios. And you talk about harvest price option when it comes to crop insurance. I mean, all sorts of different things. If this turns into like more of a crop failure type event. So I don't know, I, I think the money manager is gonna follow the, the supply side of this for the moment. And, and for the moment we've got a, a significant threat and you just don't have any sort of certainty whatsoever regarding the crop. That, that being said, they're still gonna react to weather. So if this rain system this weekend performs really well and there's widespread coverage across Iowa and into parts of Illinois, I mean, yeah, you could be softer next week to start. Sure you could.

But I just, there's, there's still so many unknowns on, on the supply side with this yield thing.

Chris

Barron: Mm-hmm. Shifting gears a little bit, before we started recording, you mentioned there's a, a big news story. I think you said civil war in Russia. Go ahead and hit on that. What, what's going on?

Joe

Vaclavik: Yeah, so I've only been made aware of this story in the last hour, so I'm not an expert on it, but yeah, there's a rebellion in Russia. There's, I suppose he was a leader of some mercenary forces that had been fighting in Ukraine and now they're, it's got, it's a private army that essentially is, they're going to try to stage some sort of coup in Russia the way that it sounds. So Russia is the top wheat exporter in the world. They've been undercutting us and everybody else on the export market when it comes to wheat pricing. So given that the little that I know about the situation right now, I'd say this is friendly, the wheat market. Come Sunday night into Monday, which could translate into friendly attitudes in, you know, your feed grain markets and maybe just the grain complex in general. So interesting stuff.

I have continued to watch this Black Sea situation, even though it's been really boring and not really a market— has been a market mover as of late. But the one thing that I've like said about it is that, you know, for some reason, Russian wheat exports were disrupted, not Ukraine. Ukraine has already been disrupted. If Russian wheat exports were disrupted. That's a big deal. So this could turn into a big deal. I'll know more about this the next couple of days, just like everybody else, if this turns into a big thing or not. But, um, it appears to be the real deal. I mean, um, go to any, any of the newswires this morning. This is all they're talking about. This is the top story everywhere. So, um, yeah, this, this could turn into a big thing. It's absolutely something you guys need to be aware of going into this next week here.

Chris

Barron: Yeah, something like that going on, you would talked about algorithms and all that, I'm sure all of a sudden the computers pick stuff up and—

Joe

Vaclavik: Yeah. And, and it could turn into nothing. And I think the statistic that I, I was looking at in some of the market data, I mean, US wheat is overpriced to the tune of 25 or 30% on the export market versus Russia. Like, I mean, we just haven't had much of a demand base, but guess what? That doesn't matter. I mean, they went, they, they ran wheat to $10, $11, $12. Last spring, and we were, uh, we were never competitive at that time. Speculators can really have their way, especially with the wheat market.

Chris

Barron: That leads me to another quick question before we get to my final thing I was going to quiz you on. Um, so corn and soybeans, talk about that then. If the, if, if in fact the weather does kind of straighten out a little bit and, you know, brings the rain in and, and the this whole pattern that we've been in starts to shift in a way that, that looks like, you know, we're going to be in, in pretty good shape for moisture and not too much heat stress and all that kind of stuff. Are we way overpriced on corn and soybeans, or, or what's your thought process there?

Joe

Vaclavik: That's a question that could get me in trouble with your, uh, with your listeners, but I don't know. I mean, so you, you listen, if I talk to farmers, talk to my customers, a lot of them in the Central Corn Belt tell me that, Joe, the top end is absolutely gone. Some people think this is already a crop failure event. Some people think there's still a chance. I don't really know. I don't, I don't have a strong opinion about the crop. I have no yield projection. I don't have anything like that.

Chris

Barron: So if we take 10 bushels off the top of the, the yield, 10 bushels, not the end of the world if you end up at a 170.—

Joe

Vaclavik: and I am correct, say I'm correct about the demand stuff and we're really— USDA is really overstating new crop demand, somewhere between $5 and $6 new crop corn may be a very fair price, maybe a very fair price at the end of the day. There's a lot of other factors too. I mean, what about what's crude oil going to do? What's the economy going to do? What's the US dollar going to do? I don't think any of that stuff matters here short term, very short term. It's about figuring out what the yield is going to be. And I don't know that the trade is, is in this coming week of trading. I don't know if the trade's ready to settle on a yield number. But yeah, I mean, if you see widespread rains and the forecast shifts wetter, I don't know that large money managers are going to want to stick around to see what happens. You could, you could end up with kind of an odd scenario.

I don't know if you remember last summer, there was a lot of weird stuff going on last summer with Russia, Ukraine and inflation and all that stuff. But last summer, the market actually sold off like into what, the third or fourth week of July. And then you saw this big late rally when we started to figure out that the crop wasn't quite there and we were going to end up below trend by 7 bushels. You could see some sort of stuff like that. I mean, you could shift toward a wetter pattern for 3 weeks and the market could sell off and then, you know, come August, figure out that, you know, the crop's not there and we've got to rally again. There's so many different possibilities here when it comes to like weather and how the market reacts to weather or a shift in the forecast. If that happens, it doesn't have to play out in ways that we've seen it in the past necessarily.

Chris

Barron: Yeah, basis is another factor in that too, isn't it? You know, depending on the timing and stuff, what have you been seeing or hearing from your customers and clients on what they're seeing on basis for old crop and any thoughts as we think about the '23 crop and moving that at some point?

Joe

Vaclavik: There's been some weakness, but I mean, there's still some— I mean, there's been weakness, I'd say generally, but then you still hear about these crazy corn bids, you know, ethanol plants trying to get their hands on corn or whatever. So I don't know, there's something just has not felt right to me about these old crop markets for a while in terms of like what USDA has out there with their balance sheets and what the cash market's been doing. It seems like it just doesn't— seems like it just doesn't necessarily line up to me. And I don't know if it's just, I don't know if it's farmers are just sitting on a lot of grain because they're in good financial shape. I don't know if that's the situation. I don't know if USDA has something wrong with last year's crop, but it feels, it feels like that old crop situation's tighter than what maybe the government has let on, I guess.

Chris

Barron: That's kind of what I was wondering, I guess, is, you know, it just feels like, you know, when you watch the basis, is there that much corn there? I mean, or as much as, supposed to be there, there. Because, um, I know in the Cedar Rapids, in our area, we see, you know, we're still sitting on a super strong basis and they have to bid up for it to keep it moving. And, um, and usually the other thing I, I always notice too, and talking to a lot of our clients and, and kind of what we see is, you know, the posted bid and what you actually are still getting right now. If, you know, if you talk to growers and see what they're really getting, um, those phone calls and those conversations and those relationships are really key because the basis is really strong, at least from what I've seen in many areas.

Joe

Vaclavik: That leads me to this report. So Friday we've got a big report. This is the planted acreage and grain stocks report. So you'll get an update from the government in regard to grain stocks, what's on the farm, what's off the farm, total stocks, the acreage numbers. I would say given in most years, those acreage numbers can be a big market mover. I think the uncertainty regarding the size of the crop, like the yield number, is the bigger issue. But they could come out of left field and surprise you with something on the acreage side. I guess it seems like there's always some sort of surprise in the acreage numbers. But keep in mind that that report is going to be out Friday at 11 a.m. Central, and that could be a market mover in itself. I still think the weather for the next 2, 3, 4 weeks is going to be the biggest deal bar none. But that report could be something.

Chris

Barron: A lot of things got planted in pretty good shape. It's just, uh, you gotta have water. So yeah, um, last thing I want to hit on here and we'll wrap it up, but, uh, I think we need to touch on the 2024. When we have a weather market like we've had to this point and, and may continue throughout the growing season to have some volatility, in my opinion, it always looks like those are a lot of times opportunities for you know, '24, maybe even looking at '25, depending on how crazy this gets. I talked to a couple of really smart producers that I work with. Actually, yesterday we were having a conversation around storage and some things, and we talked a little bit about '24 with both of them. And, and it just seems like guys are starting to get some inputs actually bought for 2024 at some pretty low prices. And I always am a firm believer of 1 to 1.

You know, you buy $100,000 worth of fertilizer, you know, you name it, whatever it is you just bought, be, be really ready if the margin is good to pull the trigger on that, at least that many dollars worth of grain sales. Do you want to talk just a little bit about what you're looking at in 2024 and kind of what you're hearing from your clients too?

Joe

Vaclavik: I'm— if you know what your numbers are going to be to a certain extent and you've got your ROI pencil for '24 corn at 20% or whatever, say it's in that neighborhood, which I think is pretty close to some of the numbers I've seen from you at least, and from other people too. Um, I don't have any problem making sales for '24, and that's not a popular opinion because we're in a drought and, um, your 2024 price is 50 cents under your new crop '23 price, and people are not a fan of making those sales at lower prices. Even though, you know, history has shown us like a 2012 situation. I mean, selling '13 corn during the '12 rally was a really good idea, right?

Chris

Barron: Yeah.

Joe

Vaclavik: Even though it was, even though you were selling at much lower prices. So I don't, I don't know anything about 2024 other than there's, there's probably some decent margin available. You know, keep in mind before this, before this drought event, I mean, just 3 weeks ago we were in a really ugly, dire looking situation where there, may have been no money to be made in '23 with current prices. Maybe same thing for '24, especially in the case of soybeans more so than corn. Soybeans went from like '24 being margins went from like totally negative ROI to now there's some positive ROI probably for farmers based on the budgets you and I've seen. So I don't know, I'm not opposed to making sales. I had one subscriber send me a message the other day and said, Joe, I'm thinking like I know what my numbers are for '24. I want to be— I'm thinking about being 30 or 40% sold.

Like, am I crazy? And I said, do you know your ROI? He said, yeah, it's 25%. I said, that's historically fantastic. Like, you're not crazy, you're just doing business, you know? Right. Are you crazy to sell corn in the— maybe— I don't know what stage we are in the drought, but are you crazy to sell corn during a drought? Maybe. But I don't know. Is it crazy to make 25%? No.

Chris

Barron: I think a lot of it still comes back to the emotion of fear. You know, you just— a lot of us really don't want to screw up, or how— that's the word I'm going to use, is screw up, you know, and look back and say, I don't know why I did that, you know. And that's where I think what you said is you have to look at it as a— this is a business and it's a margin opportunity. It's no different than any other business. If a Walmart brings in X amount of widgets and they price them at a certain amount and they sell out, You know, well, that's, that's better than sitting on the inventory and not having an opportunity to make a margin, you know. And so you really got to look at the, at the business side of it. And, and, you know, only— no, nobody's going to hit the high. Hopefully nobody hits the low. And you're never going to do 100% of everything at one time.

I mean, it's a matter of scaling in and, and just managing the business.

Joe

Vaclavik: I agree. That's a whole different— that's a whole, like, hour-long conversation we could have about what's the definition of a good sale and a bad sale? Good, good sales when you sell it and then the market goes down, right? The bad sales when you sell it and then the market keeps going up. But so if you, if you go make a 5 or 10% sale for '24 corn, you lock in some really good margin and it rallies a dollar. Was that a bad sale? I mean, I guess you could call it that, but it's still good from a business standpoint. You still got way more to sell. So, I mean, I don't know. I think that the mental part of this and the mental gymnastics is is never easy. It's the hardest part of all of this.

Yeah, I mean, the simplest way to view it would be like just through a margin standpoint, but the uncertainty regarding the crop, the emotions tied to drought and volatility in the markets, it's very difficult. Nobody ever said this was easy.

Chris

Barron: Mm-hmm. I think the thing that I've noticed is that if people who market consistently in a consistent manner, whether you're one that sells on the front end of the year or one that sells on the back end of the year, where I see people get into trouble is when all of a sudden they totally recalibrate how they do it and they're going to do it completely different because the way it was last year is what happened. And last year isn't, isn't a prediction of this coming year or whatever. You know, every, every, every situation is different. So if you consistently do your marketing in a manner that's, you know, similar every year, you're going to average out. And like you've always said, nobody knows if it's going to go up or down tomorrow. Nobody knows that.

Joe

Vaclavik: You know, what's interesting is to me, like, there's not— everybody's a little bit different, but there's— there are people on the extremes. Like, there are people who are very disciplined, like forward marketers, and they'll forward market every year if they see positive margin and that sort of thing. And those people have missed a lot of really great opportunities the last couple of years, and their average prices are probably lower than, than maybe the people who don't forward market. And you could put me in that camp because I'm always going to tell guys— I'm always going to tell guys, if you can make— if you're making a good amount of money, if your ROI is at a historically good level like it has been the last couple of years, I'm going to be all about making the forward sales every year.

You've got other people who are hold and hope type people every single year, and they have knocked it out of the park the last couple of years. Right. But they're, they're they're home run hitters. So they're the guy that if you want to make like a baseball analogy, they're going to go up and they're going to hit a home run. And but they might go 1 for 4. Whereas if you're the guy who consistently forward markets every year, you're going to be— you're going to go 3 for 4. And but you're only hitting singles, you know. So it's— it's there. There's— you can win both ways. You can win both ways. I just don't personally, if it were me, I don't have— I couldn't stomach the I couldn't stomach the bad years, the years where, where the holding and hoping doesn't work.

Chris

Barron: Well, that's the thing that I see. That's part of the conversation I was having yesterday with a couple of these guys is that, you know, you look at those who have to have the cash flow, have a tendency to do a better job of marketing year in, year out. And then those who don't, you're holding hope. A lot of times those are the producers that are sitting on a lot of cash, a lot of They're very capital, you know, hold and hold may not even be the best word.

Joe

Vaclavik: Maybe it's like hold because I can.

Chris

Barron: Yeah, I mean, exactly. Exactly.

Joe

Vaclavik: Yeah.

Chris

Barron: And you know, what we see is those guys that, that have to have the cash flow kind of have to do some of those marketing things ahead of time and really got to measure the margins and pay attention. And in my observation, those have been the producers that, you know, they don't, they don't ever hit a home run, but they stay in business. And I think that's really the name of the game is figuring out how to how to, you know, do the best you can. But, but also, you know, if you're, if you're going for a home run and you strike out a few times, how much, you know, can you afford that? That's, that's the issue.

Joe

Vaclavik: Yeah, it's that, that's a really interesting conversation. It makes what I do like, so I put out, you know, what I call like blanket grain marketing recommendations. I'm going to sell, I'm going to advise that you sell 5% today or 10% today or whatever. It's really tricky because everybody's in such a different financial situation. I try to consider what might be best for like what I consider to be my average customer. But everybody's different in the cash situations and the financials. And the longer I do this, the, the, the more I realize like how, how large the discrepancy is between one operation and another when it comes to financial situation, the ability to tolerate risk, that sort of thing. So it's, yeah, it's tricky. This is not a one-size-fits-all approach, really.

Chris

Barron: Yeah, storage, logistics, yield, crop potential. I mean, the list goes on and on.

Joe

Vaclavik: Yeah, 100%.

Chris

Barron: That's for sure. So, hey, this has been a really great conversation. One thing I told you at the beginning, or kind of, I guess, offline, that I wanted you to kind of mention your subscriber-only video. Shay and I help you with that quite a bit. And Brian, Brian Split and Matt Bennett, and you do a great job with that. If people want to check that out, what's the best way to look you up there and get subscribed?

Joe

Vaclavik: Well, definitely check out the podcast or the YouTube videos that I do. I do a morning video and podcast every single business day, and that stuff's totally free. It's up by like 6 a.m. Central. So check that stuff out. It's called Grain Markets and Other Stuff. I know most of you guys are probably aware of that, but then we've got a premium service too, and we send out a whole lot of like— so in the, in the morning stuff and the podcast and the free stuff, we do the news. Basically, we do analysis and break down different things when it comes to cash grain marketing. I mean, everything from cash grain marketing to weather to charts to all sorts of things that apply to farmers. It's been a real popular deal. I'm surprised how popular it's been, to be honest. But yeah, that stuff's out there. Chris and Shay and Brian and Matt and Mackenzie's on there now too.

We've got a really good group that helps us out, put that stuff together, and spend— we spend a ton of time on it. So I'd suggest giving it a shot. Sure.

Chris

Barron: Yeah, speaking of that, we'll be talking about storage. That's something else we could have talked here, but we'll have another conversation on that and we'll do that on your subscriber-only video. I put some— a lot of thought into storage and if that's going to make sense in a given year and how much— how many dollars can you spend on storage and is it storage or is it handling or how do you want to classify how you manage your inventory?

Joe

Vaclavik: And so is it a good idea to— is it a good idea to spend money on grain bins now, I think is the question we're supposed to answer, right?

Chris

Barron: Yeah, and I got a lot of stuff we're going to need to talk about for sure.

Joe

Vaclavik: So yeah, these higher interest rates, I mean, gosh, that's— that could— that would be— that should be a good video.

Chris

Barron: Yeah, it'll be an interesting conversation. So stay tuned. But anyway, Joe, for this conversation, really appreciate your time today.

Joe

Vaclavik: Yeah, thanks, Chris.

Chris

Barron: Yeah, you bet. And again, everybody, we'll pray for some rain and hope you guys are doing well. And if anybody got any ideas or need some other stuff for us with 19 Minutes, got some ideas on that, again, check that out. You can click on the subscription there in the show notes. And with that said, we will catch you again next time on the iViewPitch.