Using Data & Seasonality to Improve Grain Marketing Decisions

Grain markets have rhythms. Knowing them helps you sell with more discipline and less emotion. Farmers don’t need to predict the future to make better marketing decisions, says Chuck Penner from LeftField Commodity Research.

Using historic price patterns, seasonal trends and simple, odds-based thinking can increase confidence, reduce stress and improve financial outcomes. There are clear seasonal patterns, including the reliable price rebound after harvest. Timing sales around seasonal highs delivers profits more times than not.

Here are five key takeaways from Penner’s webinar you can put to use on your farm to increase profits, reduce stress and deepen your market intelligence.

Use Patterns Instead of Predictions

Price prediction is unreliable because market drivers such as weather, geopolitics, trade policy and freight costs change constantly. But price patterns repeat often enough that farmers can use them to guide decisions.

• Most crops follow predictable seasonal movements, with lows at harvest and recoveries later.
• Across nine years of CWRS wheat data, prices were higher by the end of October in all nine years, averaging $0.83/bu higher from the seasonal low.
• “History doesn’t repeat, but it often rhymes”—use the rhyme.