China

U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack will soon meet with farm officials from key trading partners Canada and Mexico.

The demand trend for food is always rising. “We’re always consuming more grain as a world, as the population gets richer and we add more people,” said Dan Basse, president of the AgResource Company.

Now that Republicans have a majority in the U.S. House, they are ready to get to work — and some work already has started.

Could the United States see another trade war with China? It is a possibility, according to U.S. Rep. Darin LaHood, a Republican member of Congress and member of the newly-created House Select Committee on China.

Near the banks of Montana’s Musselshell River, cattle rancher Michael Miller saw a large, white orb above the town of Harlowton, a day before U.S. officials revealed they were tracking a suspected Chinese spy balloon over the state.

The best-performing group of markets last year were commodities as measured by the CRB Index. The CRB is to the commodity markets as the Dow Jones is to the stock market.

The U.S. economy still has considerable momentum and is not currently on the verge of recession. However, economists have never been more pessimistic and there are very legitimate reasons for concern.

As 2023 searches for a toehold, both the commodities and securities markets continue on the paths plowed for them by last year’s larger-than-expected inflation, Russia’s brutal war, a likely surge in the global pandemic and a growing power vacuum in American politics.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture recently released the December Cattle on Feed report that traders and ranchers anticipated to be bullish.

Agricultural advancements have provided the ability to meet the food demands of an ever-growing population, but challenges lie ahead.

Soybean cash prices are typically in the dumps at harvest time, but a strong crush demand and basis didn’t let that happen. “The basis in soybeans this time of year is the strongest it’s been in over 20 years,” said Todd Hultman, DTN grain market analyst.

Commodities in the new year will outperform the other major asset classes, stocks, bonds and currencies. Of course, not all commodities will do well as some will be laggards, not possessing the right sort of bullish fundamentals to spark and sustain higher values.

Tighter domestic and global corn supplies have resulted in a new trading range for the time being.

A scientist friend recently noted that at today’s rate of consumption, the world is environmentally and economically sustainable for roughly 1 billion people. “That means with the world’s population of 8 billion,” he half-joked, “you’re a goner.”

The first column I penned for the month of May was entitled “A bull market always lets you in.” The title comes from an old saying about a bull market. It simply means that when a bull market unfolds, try not to buy strength. Be patient. History shows that more often than not a significant decline will unfold that is totally unexpected and allow patient bulls to probe the long side of the ledger.