Forward selling Barley

noworries2004

Hi,
Has anyone choose to forward sell their Barley this year.
Heard prices are dropping lately?

bob charles

noworries2004 wrote: »

Heard prices are dropping lately?

I wouldn't be taking that much advice from your source.

DMAXMAN

i dont think that thereis any fear of prices dropping at the moment, everything seems to be pushing prices up. saying that a good price should never be ignored. saw a guy in 2007 who had forward sold grain and thought he lost his shirt and would not do it again because"the merchant "was out to cod him.refused a good price for 2008 after harvest 2007 but anyone who took it more than made up the loss for 2007 and hte extra money was more welcome in 2008.selling forwaed is never about winning its about hedging your bets

Casinoking

DMAXMAN wrote: »

i dont think that thereis any fear of prices dropping at the moment, everything seems to be pushing prices up. saying that a good price should never be ignored. saw a guy in 2007 who had forward sold grain and thought he lost his shirt and would not do it again because"the merchant "was out to cod him.refused a good price for 2008 after harvest 2007 but anyone who took it more than made up the loss for 2007 and hte extra money was more welcome in 2008.selling forwaed is never about winning its about hedging your bets

I agree. Forward selling is about spreading your risk. Prices are rising at the minute alright, but that could change very quickly if the weather improved and combines started moving. It all depends on what your costs are and what price you're happy with. I had done my figures on a green price of €160/tonne for green wheat this year and forward sold 100 tonnes at €175/tonne about a month ago. I was happy with the price at the time, and although it has gone up a bit since I'm still better off than I thought I would be when I was sowing it.

Conflats

Hindsight is a great view to have when doing anything, but the benefits of forward selling are far greater than the downsides, sure you get up's and downs but overall generally you get a far better return than the spot price.

If anyone was thinking ahead imo its a great time to sell for 2013 harvest now when prices are good.

bob charles

depends, not everything is rosey in the forward selling game. you want to know whats going on in the world, having options as covers is also worth while. If I was forward selling my output I would be looking at forward buying my inputs as the price of all grain inputs will be well up if this market holds. no point selling grain at 2012 prices and input prices in 2013 sky rocketing as grain is then worth €300 a ton

rooney32

we never gained by forward selling, everything is in the merchants favour he has the inside track and all the contacts. lots of guys settled for 160 per ton for wheat making nearly 190 now happy days for merchant.

Conflats

rooney32 wrote: »

we never gained by forward selling, everything is in the merchants favour he has the inside track and all the contacts. lots of guys settled for 160 per ton for wheat making nearly 190 now happy days for merchant.

But its upto you the seller to find out the goings on in the market, http://nogger-noggersblog.blogspot.ie/ is a good website for this.

IF the wheat was only making €140/ton you wouldn't be complaining, if forward selling you need to
1 KNOW your cost of production per tonne
2 Set on a fair profit margin don't get greedy expecting too much
3 sell little and often i.e 1/4 before planting, 1/4 mid spring, 1/4 early summer and leave the final 1/4 in case of yield not coming in as expected

bear_hunter

noworries2004 wrote: »

Hi,
Has anyone choose to forward sell their Barley this year.
Heard prices are dropping lately?

grain prices are heading for record highs due to the worst drought in decades in the corn belt in america

SomethingElse

Conflats wrote: »

But its upto you the seller to find out the goings on in the market, www.nogger.com is a good website for this.

IF the wheat was only making €140/ton you wouldn't be complaining, if forward selling you need to
1 KNOW your cost of production per tonne
2 Set on a fair profit margin don't get greedy expecting too much
3 sell little and often i.e 1/4 before planting, 1/4 mid spring, 1/4 early summer and leave the final 1/4 in case of yield not coming in as expected

Website looks to have disappeared, are there any others you can recommend?

Conflats

SomethingElse wrote: »

Website looks to have disappeared, are there any others you can recommend?

Sorry gave you the wrong address its http://nogger-noggersblog.blogspot.ie/

DMAXMAN

rooney32 wrote: »

we never gained by forward selling, everything is in the merchants favour he has the inside track and all the contacts. lots of guys settled for 160 per ton for wheat making nearly 190 now happy days for merchant.

most merchants dont take the risk when forward buying grain they sell it on and usually take their handling margin on it. as i sais before its about hedging your bets not winning all the time. i prefer to make a little money every year than a lot one year and none the next.:)

K3v

rooney32 wrote: »

we never gained by forward selling, everything is in the merchants favour he has the inside track and all the contacts. lots of guys settled for 160 per ton for wheat making nearly 190 now happy days for merchant.

If you had an idea about forward selling you would know that the merchant sells on the forward bought grain more or less the same day as buying it, maybe making from €5-€10/Tonne on the trade.

There are a few pending cases due in court from last year where farmers who forward sold their grain then kicked at harverst time and did not honor their contract, thus leaving the merchant stuck making up the tonnage on forward sold grain and paying harvest prices to do so.

I think there will definately be a few more cases like this over the coming harvest. Nowadays the information available to merchants is also freely accessable to farmers so to say they have an inside track is not so. No gun was put to anyone's head to forward sell, you just have to take a view and cover yourself.

bob charles

K3v wrote: »

There are a few pending cases due in court from last year where farmers who forward sold their grain then kicked at harverst time and did not honor their contract, thus leaving the merchant stuck making up the tonnage on forward sold grain and paying harvest prices to do so.

I hope they get what they deserve for not honoring their contracts. idiots

Manoffeeling

bob charles wrote: »

I hope they get what they deserve for not honoring their contracts. idiots

Are contracts signed or do people still work the oul handshake thing still!!!!

noworries2004

Looks like i started an interesting debate,
Think ill monitor it over the next few weeks,
Drought in states seems to be driving up prices,

"Corn surged toward a record as further evidence of damage from the worst U.S. drought in a generation stoked concern yields will drop, hurting output in the world’s biggest exporter and lifting global food costs. Soybean futures vaulted above $16 bushel and wheat rallied. "

"Corn prices had risen 30 per cent in the past month to close in on the previous American summer's record price of US$7.99-3/4 a bushel. "

DMAXMAN

i think the figure of $8/bushel is seen as a watershed price and over that it has a very serious affect on consumption which happened in 2007, and we all remember what happened then.

Farmer Pudsey

Is a bushel a volume measurement and the grain is priced by weight ie the higher the weight of the bushel the less you get paid as the grain is high in moisture ????

bogman_bass

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bushel