Ag Question: What Are the Markets Doing Today?

Customers call me on the phone, stop in my office and I generally know what their first question is going to be. "What are the market doing today?"

This is one of the monitors I look at every day. It stays on this screen most of the time, unless there is something more interesting happening weather wise, and I have the radar up.

I don't always have the answer the customer wants to hear. Some days the screen is showing all red, and that is news a farmer never wants to hear.  They still might sit and talk, or just leave and go about their day.  I still have to look at this screen, and watch the markets move all day.

Commodities trade from 8:30 a.m. - 1:15 p.m. central time. Chicago Mercantile Exchange Futures can be seen at CME Group .

At the beginning of harvest, corn and bean prices were low. In our area, cash corn prices were under $3.00.  This is a big change in what the farmers have seen in the past couple of years.  This year's prices were predicted, and expected. How well do farmers prepare for years like this? Did they contract enough ahead of time? Did they sell across the scales, or store and hope for higher prices after the first of the year?

The second question I hear is, "What is the market GOING to do?"

I have a customer who loves to ask that question, then follows up with, "If you knew that answer, you would be sitting on a beach right now, and not at your desk!"