'TIS THE SEASON... TO SELL CORN AND SOYBEANS

Watch these key dates in May and June

At a late-winter meeting in Iowa, a customer asked me several questions: “First, I know that May and June are usually good months to make sales. But can you be more specific? Which weeks? Also, what if the weather is good? How low can corn and beans go?” I said I would suggest some key weeks, but not the time of day! For his question about pricing, I showed him some of my historic charts that I use to project a price range of how low new-crop prices can go.

Longtime readers know I make seasonal sale recommendations. This simple concept works well. I suggest making corn and soybean sales in May and June while avoiding sales from August through October. This has worked in 30 of the past 40 years. As we enter May and June, I have most of my customers 60% to 80% sold on the 2022 corn and soybean crops. One simple marketing plan is to sell 5% to 15% of your cash crop each week starting the first week of May. On any week when corn is up more than 15¢ (or if soybeans are up more than 40¢), you make two sales.

If you want to fine-tune the seasonal plan, then watch a few key weeks during the next two months. The first key week (actually the key day) is May 12: the day the futures contracts expire for May corn and soybeans. At the time I am writing this, May corn is trading at a 27¢ premium to the July contract, and May soybeans are trading at a 28¢ premium to the July contract. This is likely to create a spike high on my daily and weekly corn and soybean charts.