Sue Martin Live in Jesup

Hi, I'm Paul Yeager. This is the MToM podcast. I'm in studio for the update but will not be in studio for this episode. We are on the road at the Jesup Country Club in Jesup, Iowa, to celebrate the 50 year kickoff 50 seasons of Market to market kick off celebration with the Jesup Lions Club Farmers Night. Sue Martin came with me as we had a great dinner and a great crowd and conversation about the markets. I think market plus for this episode, but a lot longer answers from Sue as we ask her some questions from the audience and in the audience were some special people to me, including my mother and my sister also had a, teacher and some classmates that were there. So that was great to see them. And, some old familiar faces, from years gone by. Great to get a chance to take this show on the road. We're going to keep doing it. We have events scheduled already in Cherokee. I guess I'm slipping that out right now. And another couple are in the works in a way that you can stay in. The know is to join our insider. The Market Insider newsletter comes out every Monday. Sign up now at Market to market.org. Right there on the homepage is a place for you to get signed up. And then we deliver inside information that you don't see on TV. But you'll be in the know before it happens. It'll be in that newsletter. So again, thanks to everybody who made our event happen, our Iowa PBS crew, Caryline Clark, David Miller, Adam and Scott, great to have them with us as well. And thank you for watching new episodes of this podcast come out each and every Tuesday. Now let's go live into the field. 

[Yeager] Welcome into this live MToM podcast. I'm Paul Yeager, and joining us is longtime market analyst Sue Martin. We are at the Jesup Lions Club Farmers Night here. And, Sue, is this your first time to Jesup?

[Martin] Yes it is.

[Yeager] Well, hopefully not your last year. Sue was just on the TV show on Friday night. So anybody here actually watch the television show? Okay. Good. Mom. No, mom didn't put her hand up. my mother and my sister are here. I promise no short jokes on me. On me. Not you, on me. Come on. I have A 6-3 son, so I am the absolute short one in my house now. Sue, we're here with farmers. It's Farmers Night for Lions Club. I asked you Friday night, at the end of market plus another podcast, about three commodities that looked like they had uptrends in the future. For the next, we'll just say six months. corn, soybeans, wheat, any of them have uptrend starting right now.

[Martin] We have already moved into an uptrend on wheat, corn and soybeans. I will say this. I do think that this is a rally that we push pause, come back, maybe check the lows out. We could do that. And then we turn back higher from there. I think we could see a rally overall into the turn of the year.

[Yeager] All right, that's it. That's all we're going to do. Thanks for coming here. tonight. I hope you enjoyed the meal. We'll get into the markets in a little bit. so we're celebrating 50 years of market to market. your first appearance, we've determined we think, was 1989. Yeah. You, were featured on the TV show before you were a market analyst. Why did they feature you?

[Martin] Because there was only, like, two women in commodities at the time. One was on the, Chicago Board of Trade, and, actually was three and one was on the Kansas City Board of Trade and then myself. And we were the only ones in commodities at the time.

[Yeager] And you started, I think one of your first jobs was, I want to say, a clapperboard with cattle up in Mason city. Is that, do I have that right?

[Martin] Actually, it was in, Webster City at the stockyards. And, I started with, David Way, who was with Waco Cattle Company out of Sioux City. And, so my job was to go from the ticker tape over to, well, we didn't have a clapperboard yet. Okay. We had a chalkboard that was made to look like the clapperboard, and I believe from the ticker tape over to the chalkboard, write the quotes down, go back, erase. Write them. No again. And I swore I'd never be a school teacher, but, yeah, that's how it started. And then we got our clapperboard ad after that.

[Yeager] And now you're getting up to the minute second, pushes on your phones and and technology changes. you in 1989, I believe, well, Sid Sprecher was maybe the producer that came up. He was our executive producer on the show. You'll actually hear from him, coming up Friday, I believe. Is that right, boss? David Miller is our executive producer. He's here today. Give him a hand. I need a raise. Even though he has nothing to do with my raise. But, you know, I have to at least, you know, ride with him on the way home. since Sprecher was a producer. Talk to you. what do you remember about the camera interview at your place before you came to Des Moines?

[Martin] Well, when they came, it was like they spent. Oh, my gosh, most of the day there for about ten minutes on the show. But, they were asking lots of questions. They were filming us working with clients and just, I don't know, just basic.

[Yeager] Which was a little bit of a secret. They were there to see how they we'd heard about this Sue Martin and, they wanted to kind of see how she was on camera and they brought you down, to be on the TV show. And that would have been, I assume, with Chet Randolph.

[Martin] Yes. It was.

[Yeager] What do you remember about that first appearance?

[Martin] Well, it was in October, and I talked about the hog market, and I talked about how I thought the hogs were going to go to $50 on the board, and they hadn't been there yet. And so I might have been one of the first few that started talking about price projections. And, I'm not new or anything, but, anyway, I talked about $50 hogs. The next time I was on the show was in December, and hogs hit $50. That day was kind of sweet. So then. So then, do you want to hear the rest of us? I do the rest of the story is the next spring or early summer. My husband and I are in Ames and we're walking down Main Street past the Edward Jones office, and there was a couple guys that walked out of the building behind us, and one of them said to the other, hey, isn't that hog lady? So I don't know, it was that so?

[Yeager] You were memorable at that point?

[Martin] Yes, I was.

[Yeager] And again, one of the only few women doing what you were doing. Right. So you stood out in a couple of ways. what do you remember about Chet and what he wanted from you or what he had asked you to do?

[Martin] Well, Chet was just easy to work with. I mean, he just would ask you questions, and, you know, nothing's rehearsed or rehearsed before you talk. They want it natural. And, So Chet was just easy to work with and very, no nonsense and just very direct.

[Yeager] During the Covid era, when we did our state fair show, one of the things we did was a look back at the fair coverage. And Chet used to do, these look, these fair, I call them narrations or, poems, things like that. He just write about. Well, there's the new farmer kicking the tire, and he had a distinct voice, and here's the young kids getting ready to show in the ring. And it was just so fun to hear his voice, narrate things. But you were there to talk about the markets and move into Mark Pearson. We could fill an entire night with Mark Pearson stories. Okay, if you have to pick a couple about our former host on this show.

[Martin] Oh, gosh. The one thing I really would have to say about, and many of you who knew Mark would say the same. He was so witty. And I envy witty people because I'm one of those that thinks of the answer after the fact. He was like so quick and would constantly have. It was like jokes just flowed out of his mouth. And I will say, one time we were together. In fact, that might have been the last time he and I were together on a program was in Hartley, Iowa, and I found out that he even had a good college education and everything else, so I did. He did. He was such a clown, you know, he was so good.

[Yeager] He was a Naval Reserves Intelligence officer. Yes. And that was something I didn't know until his funeral. Mark had, but I contend that Mark was different in different arenas. You did not see jokes on the TV show market to market, right? He was not. No, he was.

[Martin] Not in the show.

[Yeager] But he was doing it before. Yeah. Yeah, he did a lot of other things for Iowa Public Television. And he was very funny in everything he did there. But on the speaker circuit, yes, he was. He even recorded a comedy album, if that gives you an idea. Yeah. He recorded a, his old boss said, you know, Mark, you should do, an album of comedy. So that's that's one of his things. Okay. We are going to take questions about the show or about not necessary about the show, about commodities. So if you have a card, Dave or Caroline will pick them up. If you want to just put them up, I'll let them walk around and and get a couple of those here to you. This is the moment to say if you have any questions. Otherwise I will fill, for the next three hours if you let me. And and maybe I'll let Sue talk even.

[Martin] That's fine.

[Yeager] Do you? Then you worked with Mike and Delaney, and now some other guy. has the show changed at all over the years?

[Martin] Not too much for me, anyway. Yeah. I think it's gotten to where people are more direct in their, forecasts, maybe giving projections of what they think the market's actually going to do because they're not there to be around the Bush. you're there to actually say what you're thinking and see, and God knows, you can sure be wrong. And then you can be right. And, you know, I might have been one of the first that talked about beans in the teens.

[Yeager] Beans in the teens. So where should we go? a couple of years ago, I was, working the state basketball tournament, and my phone rings and it's Mark gold. Did I ever tell you was actually Mark gold? I think I've just told you somebody called, but I just outed Mark. Mark calls. Who in the heck did Sue Martin just call for $30 beans? I said, yeah, that was on our show. So our Mark Sue did that. I just can't believe it. You've worn that. And I've asked you most weeks when you come on, you have a question about are we headed there? Yeah. Walk me through that day when you made that prediction and you have backed it up and and stayed with it here a couple of times. Yeah.

[Martin] Well, I had several reasons. One was if you take and go back in history and you take the extreme low to the extreme high of a move in, soybeans, for example, but same way in corn, but in soybeans. And I went back to like the early 70s, late 68, 69, actually, $30 beans would have been very doable. The percentage of improvement in price and what we ended up getting was just like a double top on the beans with the all-time high from 2012, I believe it was. And, but it was the second lowest percentage increase. And I was amazed that it would only do the second lowest. But here was another reason why I projected like I did. It was because you had, global demand so pent up, you know, food wasn't getting where it needed to be. And back in the, I want to say in the mid 90s, maybe 92, 93, 95, you had the global buyer importer all of a sudden saying, you know, I don't have to store this stuff. I can get it whenever I need it. So they went to just in time inventory, and when they did that, they basically what they did was they just became so complacent because it worked pretty well for quite a while until the pandemic hit, and all of a sudden they were caught short handed with not very much food on hand. The markets were pent up. We found out. And what was it, 2020? August of 2020. Farmers grain bins were empty because the the ratio that went through and all of a sudden the market's just. And I was on the show in February when I said this. Yes. And basically you could just tell even on the technical analysis that I do or the charts that I look at, the markets were wound up tighter than a fiddle. And when you go sideways in a range for usually 5 to 6 years, but this time it was basically you're talking 7 to 8. The markets were wound very tight, ready to go. And they did come out of there really swinging. But the one thing that I missed, I thought we would build reserves and the countries would go away from this just in time inventory, and that too would be part of the driving force of a demand market. The one thing I missed was China wasn't coming out of lockdowns. They were going to stay there for three years and when they did that, there was a couple reasons. One was because China didn't have food. President XI had been warning people to be sure to, save your scraps. Don't be wasteful, that type of thing. And then he put them in lockdown because they didn't have an abundance of food. They had found out that signal grains managers of the elevators or the, grain arrays had been lying. They had been saying like they were paid on, how many bushels was in those bins? And therefore they were enticed to lie because if grain went out of condition, they'd get rid of it, but they wouldn't claim that it was gone. And so all of a sudden they were caught short handed and realized the problem they had. So they kept people in lockdown. And then it also happened to be another political, advantage for President XI because he wanted to be president for a very long time, maybe the rest of his life. And so he felt that if people were able to be out and about freely, he might not get that job done. As soon as that job was done, if they came out of lockdown and now they're building reserves.

[Yeager] And I've heard, for Ted cipher, it's going to be on the show here. And Ted is long said. And I think you've echoed, you believe China is going to start building much more reserves and much more in-country production? Yes. that is going to maybe take what's grown here in Buchanan County and Black Hawk County and not be shipped overseas like it once was. What do you see China doing in the next six? Well, not six, six months to five years. Do we know in past will their past be indicative of their future, production needs?

[Martin] Well, first off, they cannot raise enough food. they're. First off, their soils are good enough to do that. And they have such a huge population. And they started back in, gosh, two as I as say 2015, they moved away from, just one child per family because the population was getting elderly. And they knew that a country doesn't survive unless you have people. And so they went from one child to two children. Now in ‘22 they moved that to three children. But it takes time to build that population up. But they're building reserves. some of their granaries were out of condition anyway, but they are already in the process of building these reserve, facilities, and they'll fill them now. They moved away, you know, back in the 70s, 50 years ago, we had the great grain robbery where Russia was taking grain and it was wheat especially. And, they basically cleaned out our bin sites, our country bin sites. Well, I feel like China might be doing something similar where they're hitting Brazil. Paraguay. Argentina. And they're building a port on the coast of Peru, and I'm not sure, but I don't think it's going to be ready anytime this year. It might be next year or in ‘26.

[Yeager] Well, we go from South America teaching them how to basically grow the crop. And now they are taking some of our market away. Was it ours to begin with in this fight?

[Martin] Well, I think we just got very, complacent about this. We were so used to having China and them being our number one customer. And in a way, the US is a very they were always considered on time, a very consistent shipper, an exporter of grain. So I can see why they stayed with us. But then Brazil got great you know, increased. You also had yeah, I would say President XI and former President Trump, you know, they had their trade issues going on. And, you know, it's interesting because China, you never listen to what they tell you. They don't tell you a lot of stuff to help drive prices down, but you got to watch their actions. And the classic was that, and I have to give my assistant credit because she's the one who called it that. Cosco International Grains, which is a state owned enterprise in China. but they have offices in Chicago. And they were taking and I think it was we caught it in March of 2020, but they had probably been doing it long before that, in 2019. Never had seen them do this before, but they started taking over 90, I'd say many times 90 to 99, 95 to 99% of the being deliveries. And it was so interesting to see that because those beans were probably making their way when that was already banned, that they couldn't import beans into China, Cofco international was taking control of all the deliveries. And then after it became real popular and know they quit doing that.

[Yeager] Amazing. When they get caught doing something.

[Martin] Right, they're still doing it. I, I just gotta figure a way. because they are now I think they're under the guise of companies like ADM. you know, it could be the Andersons and but the thing is, you also know when you get deliveries, you are able to see where those deliveries go, what warehouse. So we just need to figure out what the warehouse numbers are for Costco.

[Yeager] So this is this is my hometown. I grew up here. was not going to be an agriculture, because I child of the 80s, it was a tough time. plus, I was really good at planting tractors. I get them stuck. I found every wet spot on the farm. I'm really good at breaking things. but I start. I have a couple of classmates that are here that are farmers. and there's a couple of teachers that are here. there's been a difference in those 30 years. I'm being generous now. 30 years. And the difference in those two times, what are you telling the farmer who is under 50 and somebody who's interested in agriculture, who might be going to a school today?

[Martin] The one thing I would say is, farming is a business. You'll, know that. And you can, you can put the crop in the ground and weather permitting, it'll grow. The kicker for farming, and I think making it profitable is marketing. That is the major. And I see it over and over and over so many times where producers, and I think, you know, there's no money. Nobody is more bullish than a farmer and you're optimists and you have to be an optimist or you wouldn't be a farmer. And so, I guess I would say if I had to say something to honest, take your charting classes, be willing to read, research and think outside the box. And, make sure you treat it like a business and be willing to assess, you know, demand driven markets. And there are the hardest to assess. And, I think that they would do fine.

[Yeager] If you're watching this online, each week we ask and if you're in the crowd every Wednesday, Thursday online on our social channels, we asked for commodity questions that are going to be lobbed at you. You kind of know what I'm going to ask each week. Well, no, you don't, because we don't rehearse anything. I like to keep it. We talk about anything but the markets before we roll. I'm usually updating you on something or I'm asking you where you've been traveling or, where you've been speaking and things like that. the questions are always interesting to me because I usually like to ask, what are you being asked? Because to me, that's always the barometer of what's on people's minds. I mean, polls can tell you one thing. So these questions, a couple of them are very interesting one right here. You talked about, the amount of grain. And we've done all sorts of government programs over the years. How about this one? Any talk about raising ceiling prices from 214 to maybe $4. These are reference prices that are not helping us right now. Anything like that?

[Martin] I haven't really heard any talk much about that. And so I don't think that's really having the impact on the market. I think what's having the biggest impact on the market right now is we're going through some changes. One is, of course, dealing with Brazil now. We're competing against them to be number one. And, and then Argentina competes against them for a number 2 or 3. And I think the other thing we're dealing with, yes, artificial intelligence, it's easy to blame the funds and what have you for your misfortune. But artificial intelligence is only as good as what you put into it. So somebody feeding that information in and then the artificial intelligence, the computer is non-biased. It's an emotional. And when you're producing the crop and you hear there might be a hot, dry summer, well, then it wears on your emotions. And so, the one thing I would say is in times like that, maybe then utilize the options market and utilize the puts, there's all sorts of strategies. There's put spreads where you buy a put up, and then you sell one out of the money to cheapen the cost. And then you have to walk the lower one down. If the markets breaking or if the market turns higher, then you haven't spent as much money, but you've got a floor under you, you know, just various things like that. But, I guess I would say, you know, just recently, in fact, yesterday, Bank of America came out and said they thought that, the bonds, the funds were going to use less bonds and more commodities, which I thought was kind of a good news. I mean, yes, this year they've been short, but, 60, 40, balance is what they were talking.

[Yeager] Let's find something quick. I have a question that's similar and I don't again, I don't give her questions, but it's amazing. what you lead into and what I try to pick up on and try to take a discussion, that's, I guess, what they tell me I'm supposed to do. But let's match. Let's talk about the funds. We always get this question. It kind of goes in cycles of, the funds have drove us lower, but it was those same funds.

[Martin] That drove it higher.

[Yeager] That drove it higher. Right. So how would anybody in this room know what's going on with the funds in real time?

[Martin] Well, every day, burst off every day there, you'll see estimates out of the exchanges as to what the funds are doing, whether they're buying X number of contracts or selling. The other thing is, at the end of the week, you always get a commitment of traders report on Friday. And those indicate what the commercial czar position is, what the spec fund is. Hedge funds, you know, it gives you kind of an overview of what every part of the overall positioning in the market is, and that helps as well to give you ideas. right now, as we came into, the end of August, you know, we had funds that had been, between corn, soybeans, a wheat record short. And usually when they're pushing new levels of a position, whether it was on along side or the downside, the market's getting pretty full or, they're just pretty well spent, I would say on position. And you'll turn seasonality is another way to look at the markets as well. There's years where you'll get counter trends. an example would be last year corn put a low oil beans to put their lows in in July. That is not a common behavior. if you go back to like the early 70s, that's just doesn't happen very often. And so when that does happen, what occurs in the market, what's the behavior? You tend to rally the whole last half of the year into the new year. We did that. And so, you know, last year, in fact, my accountant was telling me the day that he sold corn on, actually today, if it was still a year ago. And so that's kind of like towards new crop, sold it for 660 a bushel. I thought that really took me back a bit because I didn't realize that it had been that good, you know, but that, but he did. He sold some corn for 660 a bushel to go off the combine. And I thought that was pretty interesting, because I think it was last Friday. My cash reader said to me, Sue corn, today it's 370 a bushel. Now he was open. I come down at Red.

[Yeager] So he was trying to drive a bargain. He was negotiating.

[Martin] Yes.

[Yeager] More fun.

[Martin] Yeah, but he's a good guy. So, you know, we got to work together, right?

[Yeager] You mentioned seasonality. That is, that is class sick. Look at the markets. You did talk a little bit about I and again, not your first week on the job but what is what has changed. in this technology. And, you mentioned the funds, you mentioned AI trading. What about social media? Does that have any influence on the market?

[Martin] Well, yes. there's so much information out there now. I mean, you know, you can go to Twitter and and there's just a ton of information people who are brokers or whatever that are putting information out. Now, granted, they're a little bit controlled.

[Yeager] This is highly motivated. And what they're putting.

[Martin] Well, they may have been motivated, no doubt about it, but they still have to be careful what they put out because they get audited by the NFA National Futures Association. And if they aren't having disclaimers there and what have you, or they make it sound like it's just so believable, just like seasonality, every time we talk about seasonality, we're supposed to say that's a practice of the past, doesn't mean it guarantees the future, but it just shows you what's occurred in the past. So is the clean up, you know, walk a fine line. But, you know, you have Facebook, there's a site called Grain Market Discussion on Facebook. And that's pretty interesting. Sometimes some of the comments that come out on them.

[Yeager] Oh, we could get into a long time speak about Facebook and what we see. But I did see something today. And I told someone out in the crowd before dinner tonight that I saw a picture of a soybean and it was in someone's hand, and it looked like it had nine different beans, and it looks swelled up pretty big. I think it was a banana pepper. I really don't think it was a soybean. But when you see photos like that of we, I, I've asked you this before, I ask all of our animals, I'll get a call from someone that says, it is so dry in the 40 acres around me. Why can't the market reflect what's happening so dry or so wet around me, when we have millions and millions of acres to deal with?

[Martin] Because we have satellite? And, the USDA uses greenness maps, and, they're able to, even nass, you know, uses greenness maps. And so that influences when they look down on Earth and they see, you know, and not just in our country, they have a pretty good clue in Brazil, China, you know, they're able to see pretty much everywhere. And, so they have a good clue as to what is happening. And are they always right? No. But, the one thing I will say, we came off with probably a finish that we really didn't need to have with this heat, and yet we didn't have triple digits. We never had triple digits this year.

[Yeager] We talked about this Friday. I think we talked about it and it was recorded for others to see, not just our conversations between, on my drive up today, took a different route. I just like to see different things. You had gone north central Iowa recently. There's a lot of beans that are turning. I saw a whole lot of years that are already about ready to drop. Yeah, and so will the market figure in the summer or I guess finished two strong fall came to Earth. I mean, will it how the growing season seems to have been muted just a little bit. Do you think the market reflects the sudden change in moisture and the heat? Not the triple digits, but the heat?

[Martin] I think it's that some of that in a little bit. And then if you look at crop condition, ratings were much higher than we've been for the last year, and of course, maybe even over the five year average. So we have to keep in mind that that implies good crops. And I guess if we're going to have low prices, we've got to have a lot of crop. The help dollars of those acres. So I guess I would say, you know, the weather does come into play a little bit here. Normally when you're in September, you worry more about a frost freeze and frost freeze. And we have had one those a long time.

[Yeager] Do you get the sense that if it's a large crop in a certain area, that say it's Iowa, or say it's Illinois, the computers, the algorithms, the traders in Chicago, which really aren't in Chicago, they're in Key West, Florida, or wherever they're at. Do they just look at a big blanket? And I mean, I'm asking the same question again, but how do you how does anybody in this room defend themselves against large blanket statements that they have to deal with on a day to day basis?

[Martin] Well, if you notice, when it looked like Illinois and Indiana and Ohio started off dry, of course they got the crops in and they were dry. The market was willing to maybe lift a little bit. And then as soon as they started catching rain, the market slipped. It's like in the back yard of the Chicago Board of Trade. And I hate to say it, they are all over the weekends driving around. They look at the fields, things look good. It's like sometimes I don't know if they truly care about the western side of the corn Belt.

[Yeager] Well that's interesting. any truth to the rumor that in the in the days of the drought of 88, that somebody brought a fire hose to the Board of Trade to make it sound like it was raining, to get the market to move.

[Martin] Now, I'm I'm. I don't think so.

[Yeager] But that was through social media too good. That was, you know, that would have really changed things there. do you get the sense and again, if you have any questions here, we're kind of getting up about the end of our time. if you do have anything you want to write or, quickly put it up on a, on a card, but. Does USDA or Grassley believe estimated yields for price fixing grain? Did I get the question right, I hope do you think that does USDA have to believe the data they put out there, or is it just data?

[Martin] Well, it's data, and I would think that they would trust their data if that's what they're coming out with. I mean, otherwise, you know, you can't trust them. And I've heard that many times too, you know. But I would say that when they're coming out with these reports, you know, if you look at even in other countries like Brazil, how they never really came down real easily, and yet all of a sudden it's starting to be that they're starting to come together and it's getting closer to what I think the USDA, I think we're blessed that the USDA is as close to accurate as they are.

[Yeager] But do you find that we're going to run into private companies, very large companies that buy and sell grain, trade grain, hedge grain, have all sorts of fingers around agriculture, are going to cast a big influence over market decisions by a government agency or other government agencies. John Doe, I want to get you in trouble with the with the traders folks here and answer that one.

[Martin] Well, I think there are companies out there that do you know their own assessments, right or wrong? and you know, the Pro Farmer Tours, is the classic one that goes out every year. And, usually it's always thought that the markets will break when they're doing it. I think the surprise in that tour this year was that they came off with and we knew that beans looked better than corn. I would say crop the crop and the beans are short this year in many areas. And yet they're you know, that doesn't make any difference. It's the padding and their product of the one thing I did not hear this year out of the pro farmer, too. I think I've seen it once, and that was in is how many beans are in those pods. And that's what makes the difference. If you have 3 or 4 beans in a pod, you're going to have a really good yield. If you have twos and threes, well, maybe it's not as good. And so that was the one thing I was surprised I didn't hear much. but there is lots of pods. Another thing is I'm starting to hear talk that the beans are small in the pods, so I'm not sure I, you know, I haven't been out in our field, but, I, I would just be interesting to hear that. one other thing, too, when you talk about social media and this is just a bit of the trend, I've seen pictures in from southern Illinois of years of corn. Nice length, but they didn't pollinate. You might have sporadic kernels that are real big and fluffy, but hardly any on the ear. And then there's been comments. You know, you'll read the comments and some will say, well, my field in the area looks pretty good. Then there's another guy that comes up and says, well, mine looks just like that. And so, you know, but the one thing you've got to be careful about social media is this. Because sometimes you might hear the very worst. And, you know, they emphasize that rather than the good. but I will say I was surprised at the bean yield from Pro Farmer at 54.9. That was much over the USDA. So it's thought that next Tuesday when or let's see here the 12th whatever day that. Yes. I think the USDA report comes out on that day and it's thought that that Nass will come out with an increase in the bean yield. I think they made two. But it's going to be interesting to get these combines rolling and see. And there are some very good areas. And then there's some that just aren't.

[Yeager] But I, I look at people out here that I know are neighbors and they're across the fence to one another or in a grander scheme of things, is your neighbor across the fence to you, your competitor, or are you competing against the Brazil and China, Argentina? Are we collectively as American agriculture competing against one another, or are we competing globally for things?

[Martin] I think we're competing globally. I don't I don't know, I don't like to think that we compete against our neighbor. I think farmers go out there, they do the best job they can do. God willing, Mother Nature, gratifies and, you know, and then you, you move on and you're doing your own pricing and, and what you can do and, where, you know, when we look at Brazil, I think they have made a huge difference in us here recently. But then we have to keep one thing in mind. We're changing, we're going to biofuels, and we're expanding in oilseeds and biofuels and renewable fuels and aviation fuel. And, one thing here, just this week we had, of course, soy, canola oil limit down. I think that was on Monday night into Tuesday. And then of course, that affected soybean oil and crude oil because our energies and, you know, I think the demand growth for bean oil could be as much as 33%. So we're raising for our own energy entities. And that's a change. And of course corn will be a little bit of that too. But with us canola situation, you had Canada who put a 100% tariff on Chinese electric vehicles. And they also put a 25% tariff on aluminum and steel. And that really took China off a little bit. And so they came back this week and Monday and said that they were going to, start, an anti-dumping, commodity anti-dumping for oil, investigation. And of course, that means that they're going to slow oil usually once.

[Yeager] Go ahead and finish.

[Martin] So what do you think's going to happen if that's the case. Canada in 22 of course was approved to have canola oil in renewable fuels. Well okay. Canola oil produces about three times the amount of oil in an acre that soybean oils or soybeans produce in the oil. So that could be a little bit of a competitive situation. And if you've got China not buying, where are they going to go with it? And so that is something we may have to watch as we get into next year.

[Yeager] I want to thank the Jesup Lions Club for having us tonight. Don Weber was our contact. And I appreciate everybody that came out here tonight. And as we close here, Sue, the, you know, and we we thank a farmer for what they do. They're in a tough spot, it seems, all the time. Yeah. It never rains too much. It rains too little. The markets are too high. The markets are too low. Whatever it is, they're always dealing with everything. As we thank the people that do what they're doing. Yes. On a day to day basis, you're known for being bullish and optimistic. Give me some optimism to close tonight.

[Martin] Well, I, I believe that as we go into next year and I've already said I thought we could push into next year. And on the show I talked about years of a five. And I went back through the data and, and I've encountered this where I've been out speaking and, and, in fact, when Taylor did it to me once, but, on the USDA site, there is a place where you can get the data that goes all the way back. Beans. I think I've got that start in around 1908 or 1912, and corn is around that 1908 area. And then I what I do is, it's called patterning. So markets have a tendency and years ending in a same number ten months more times than not have a pattern to them. And so I thought it would before I did the show, I thought it'd be fun to just look at years of a five. And so I went and I looked at beans and what I found was beans tended to put their highs in earlier in the crop year. usually it would be in, February, March or April, maybe May. And, but it, it favored the first three months. And I could see if this market rallies into early next year. We may see early I could see that happen. And then the corn would come a little bit later. And it's not uncommon for corn and beans to put their highs and lows in a month apart. They can do that. And corn would be more, April, May, June more times than not in a year of a five. One thing that really stood out was in a year of a five on corn, was that eight out of the ten went down for the low of the year in December. One of those, the ninth tier was, low in November. So again, later in the fourth quarter and then there was the outlier year. That was 1995. And so after the show, I was thinking about that, and I thought, what made 1995 so different that it put its low in in January and rallied the whole year. What made it different? And you know what it was hatched to arrives. I don't know if many of you remember that that time. And I remember, shortly after the 4th of July, there was a hog roast in our area. A farmer was having a hog roast. I was there, and the elevator manager came up to me and he goes, you know, so we have already booked all of the grain that we would normally get in the fall. And what he told me was pretty strong because what he told me, they weren't going to get anything, but in the fall they were, they already had it. So it was going to be delivered. So when they've got that on the books, what are they short and what was it hedged to? Arrives. And then they kept rolling. They said, all right. So you had an inverted market where because everything was sold ahead, Japan also came in and started buying and that was unexpected. But then they kind of smelled blood a little bit on the floor trading floor. And as you had the front leading and inverted market, what happens? It expires strong. Well then you've got to the farmer has to do something with this. You either roll it or you just take it and do your basis and be done instead. More times than not, they were told to roll it. And so they rolled out to the next month, which is down here. What happens? It does nothing but come up. So the farmer was losing money again, and that just kind of kept beating into 96. And I think that's why that year was so different. It was because farmers had bit the bullet, didn't want to get caught, sold early. And then the markets turned around in the 90s. But every other year we were producing record crops. We were really doing well.

[Yeager] And we could very well do that again this year. We, given the reason that we started with.

[Martin] One real quick thing.

[Yeager] This is what she does, by the way. She tries to get it. And then I usually have somebody in my ear telling, oh, well, I've got to go, I've got to go. Should I out my boss now and say it's usually him, we have a certain time to go. What's your last thing? So sorry.

[Martin] Well, last year I looked at the Farmer's Almanac because I wanted to see what it called for, for the weather, and it called for the winter of 23, 24 to be, cold and wet. And then it called for the summer hot and dry, for a large area of the Midwest and grain producing areas. Okay. Well, this next year's 2425 Almanac is interesting. It calls for a winter. That's to be, cold but dry or mild. And it's calling for the summer hot and dry. And what's interesting in this is it's got Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky, the southern half of Wisconsin and Michigan wet. What does that do for prices if they're right? And then the rest of the country and I mean, a large portion of the rest of the country is hot and dry. And I thought, well, we are supposed to be going into a La Nina by December, January, which.

[Yeager] We were supposed to be in already now, though, right? Yes.

[Martin] And it got kicked out, kept getting kicked.

[Yeager] They rolled it to the next month and caused the inverse because I did I mix things up. Did I not get that right? Okay.

[Martin] If that's the carrying charge March.

[Yeager] Oh that's the carry charge market. That's in the next two hours of our discussion. All right. I want to thank the Jesup Lions Club here in Jesup, Iowa. Don Weber, thank you so very much for having us here. As we kick off our first, our second 50 seasons, we're celebrating our first 50 seasons of the show. And we'll see what happens next here on Market to Market, which is produced each and every Friday afternoon at Iowa PBS. My thanks to the crew here from Iowa PBS who came with us, and those who are guests, and also the Jesup Lions Club farmers and their friends. Let's give Sue Martin a big round of applause. Everybody. Thank you very much for watching. Have a good night. Thanks for coming.

Contact: Paul.Yeager@IowaPBS.org