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Greg Peterson
Founder, Machinery Pete, Machinery Pete

Moving Iron: Kicking Off the New Year with Market Stabilization Signals

📅 Jan 08, 2026 Moving Iron Podcast 100 MIN 117 VIEWS 150 SEGMENTS · 5 SPEAKERS
In this episode of Moving Iron, Casey Seymour and Greg Peterson break down the shifting dynamics shaping the ag equipment marketplace—and why 2026 could mark a major turning point. From surprising strength in auction values to unprecedented shortages in combines, the market is behaving in ways few expected. Casey outlines signals pointing to stabilization in supply, demand, and pricing, while Greg shares eye-opening auction results, including record-setting prices for older John Deere tractors. Together, they explore how buyer behavior is evolving as farmers adapt to high new-equipment costs b...

Questions asked in this interview

12
  1. 0:00Greg, how are you doing today?
  2. 0:35So I guess when you go through these cycles, and you've been through a lot of them, when you go through these cycles, what do you pay attention to more on the tail end of these things than you do on the front end of them?
  3. 3:58And that bulge kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger as the year went on, which you would expect it to, because that was the last big run of new equipment sales over the last three to five years, right?
  4. 4:25But that's really whittling down that supply, which is great, which you need to see that happening, right?
  5. 5:37What about it more than anything?
  6. 6:27Do you have a bunch of 10-year-old quality tractors that you're going to go out and sell, which is going to set the bar as to what that marketplace looks like?
  7. 15:16And to say you have a 2-to-1 ratio as those machines start to trickle through, that's not a lot of used combines on the market, right?
  8. 18:23How many pieces of equipment did you watch sell over $650,000 at auction this year?
  9. 27:21How many people are in those buckets and ready to buy?
  10. 30:33it's next to impossible, I think, to become a farmer, and really with the dollars associated with that. You know what I mean?
  11. 31:05And I think that we live in a country where things are still possible. Are they easy?
  12. 33:39Folks want to reach out to you, have you come to their auction or speak at an event, what's the best way to do that?
Casey Seymour 0:00 ↗
Welcome to Moving Iron with Casey Seymour and Greg Peterson, the podcast for anyone and everyone involved and interested in the business of equipment. If you want to understand what trends and market forces are impacting the price of your iron, you've come to the right place. Buckle up, it's time to move some iron. Hello and welcome to Moving Iron Podcast. This edition of Moving Iron Podcast is brought to you by John Deere. I've got Greg Machinery Pete Peterson on to talk about what's happening in the marketplace. Greg, how are you doing today?
Greg Peterson 0:25 ↗
I'm doing well, Casey, and happy new year to you, my friend. Happy new year. 2026 will be a good year. We can be hopeful.
Casey Seymour 0:35 ↗
Yeah, yeah. Let's hope that it's not a repeat of 2025 in a lot of ways, so we can push things forward a little bit. And I can, you know, like we've talked about in the past, I kind of feel like this is a bottoming out of a year, kind of a stabilization year where we kind of figure out where things are going to go from here and start moving up. And we're seeing some things that kind of start pointing towards that as we go through there. But you know, Greg, as you look at 2026, this is the time, this is always that point of time where I try to figure out what are the things I'm going to pay attention to this year that I didn't pay attention to last year, or do I need to have a little more gravitas on a little bit when I'm looking at what's going on in the marketplace. So I guess when you go through these cycles, and you've been through a lot of them, when you go through these cycles, what do you pay attention to more on the tail end of these things than you do on the front end of them?
Greg Peterson 1:28 ↗
Well, it's interesting where you bring this up right now, Casey, because we just flipped the calendar. So when you flip the calendar when it comes to used equipment, of course, November, December has always been kind of go time. And it was semi-shocking what we saw in the auction market. November, December of 2025, that stabilized market lifted and used values went up. They just did. And so now that the calendar flips, I'll be sort of watching, you know, lower activity in January, early February, but early signs are pointing towards holding what we saw at the end of 2025. Just before we hopped on our recording here this morning, I posted a note about a tractor yesterday, and it, you know, it's pretty deaf, of course, and pretty deaf is what it is. But it was a, you know, a '99 model, a 7810 Deere, two-wheel drive, 5,007 hours on it, one owner, super sharp. My friends at Kiko Auctioneers out in Ohio sold it yesterday in Salem, Ohio, went for 75,000.
And a very common theme here throughout the second half of 2025, Casey, where when I look at that number, 75K, a two-wheel drive, and I pull up all the other John Deere 7010 two-wheel drives with over 5,000 hours, I find that's the second highest one ever, and the only higher one was April 29th last year on a sale in, I think, Niche, North Dakota. So, you know, I think I'm just kind of watching again the volume of sales, which was definitely up second half of 2025, more farmers either downsizing or just, you know, getting out.
Casey Seymour 3:07 ↗
Mhm.
Greg Peterson 3:08 ↗
But despite the increase in number of sales, you know, I guess I saw two things that I've never seen before at the end of last year, Casey. One was that normally when the number of sales goes up, pricing levels generally fall. Econ 101, right?
Casey Seymour 3:25 ↗
Right.
Greg Peterson 3:26 ↗
And the other thing that I've never seen before, we're seeing right now, is when used auction values are lifting, and all over my 36-year career, that's always signaled strength for new equipment sales. But this is the first time I've ever seen used values going up and new sales are like crickets. So to me, it feels like 2026 will kind of be the same. And so we're just kind of monitoring as we go these kind of interesting trends out there right now.
Casey Seymour 3:58 ↗
Yeah, for sure. So to me, a couple things pop out to me as I'm looking forward, and these are things I'm going to pay close attention to as the year progresses. We saw a really big buildup in the 3 to 5-year-old equipment out in the marketplace. And that bulge kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger as the year went on, which you would expect it to, because that was the last big run of new equipment sales over the last three to five years, right? So you'd expect to see that.
The really the one thing about this, about the marketplace we're in now, is that there wasn't any, I won't say any, but the very few new machines sold which generated hardly any trade-ins to come in on that stuff. So you've kind of got a diamond-shaped funnel, right? You got a bulge in the middle and you're lean at the top, lean at the bottom. If you look through where December was, all the way through December to where we're at today, there was a significant number of 3 to 5-year-old machines come off, which we talked a little bit about that as we kind of wrapped things up last year, the number of machines that were coming off there. But that's really whittling down that supply, which is great, which you need to see that happening, right? The backside of that is that as those machines come in, get sold out, the trade-ins that come with them are going to be somewhere in between 6 to 10 or even older machines that come into play. If you look at the 6 to 10-year-old buckets and the 10-plus-year-old buckets, you're seeing those machine numbers rise, which you would expect to see that. What's interesting about that is typically, like you were talking about, our friend up there in Ohio, Jim...
Greg Peterson 5:35 ↗
Rel.
Casey Seymour 5:37 ↗
Yeah. He was talking, last time he talked to me, he said, 'Hey, we're running into a situation here where we're going to be running out of equipment soon.' And what he's referring to is that 6 to 10-year-old stuff, you know, and that typical auction range stuff. Greg, I think this is the first time in my career where I can point out saying that the true quality of the piece of equipment is going to really carry the day more than anything else, because you start looking at 6 to 10-year-old stuff, you can, you know, there's 5,000 machines, then there's 5,000-hour machines, right? There's, you know, there's ranges of what that looks like and they're not all the same. And I think that is when you start looking at does this machine have the specs I'm looking for? Is it a high-spec machine? Has it got low hours? Has it got good tires? What about it more than anything? Tires. Especially you start looking at stubble damage and the price of tires these days.
As you start looking through those things, I'm looking at a marketplace where there's going to be a lot of auction-age machines, 6 to 10-year-old stuff, 6-plus-year-old stuff that starts making its way to auctions. Even more so than we've seen in the past because of the availability of that equipment coming into the place. But it's not so much that, hey, we got a bunch of 10-year-old tractors that we're going to go out and sell. It's like, do you have a bunch of 10-year-old tractors you're going to go sell? Do you have a bunch of 10-year-old quality tractors that you're going to go out and sell, which is going to set the bar as to what that marketplace looks like? And I think there's an opportunity here that you see an upward push of value rather than a downward push of value.
Greg Peterson 7:07 ↗
Yeah, for sure. I agree. I think, you know, you're talking about on the dealer side, on the dealer lots, so much that what 3 to 5-year-old stuff came off end of December, and it was very noticeable from a data perspective, and that really jives with, you know, what we've been seeing on the auction market generally. You know, again, farmers, if they're not buying new, at least on the grain side of things, and this period has been stretching out now for a while. And the super fascinating thing to me, Casey, and we've talked about it a little bit, is, you know, farmer mindset and shatter. So I attended a... I was all over the US covering auctions in November, December. And I mean, I love documenting the prices, but the real fun is just talking to people, and it becomes clear that there's maybe a collective reset on the farmer side. Like, we were pretty equipment-heavy and we had a lot of late-model iron running on our farm. Right or wrong, that's just the way things evolved. And now this period of the last few years where they're not buying new and the trade cycle slows, and we live in an age with social media, you pick up your phone and you see a podcast or whatever, farmers... this mindset is taking more firm hold with farmers as times are challenging like this. So then when you start talking about the supply realities on a dealer used lot, that gets really fascinating because that diamond shape you're talking about, you know, if we compare back to past downturns and how farmers reacted through those based on the level of inventory dealers had, this is different. Like I say, I've never seen before where sales of new are stagnant and auction prices are rising. 36 years, and I've never seen it.
Casey Seymour 9:03 ↗
Mhm. But I think it plays into the reality we're at right now. So it really, like you said, it comes down to whether it's a 2-year-old, 3-year-old, 7-year-old machine. Is it one that's been pounded on, or is it, oh, look at that. Oh, look at that one. That spec's just right, it's got those hours. What I'm seeing at auction is when those machines show up and you get that double premium because four guys are on it. That's what I'm looking for.
Greg Peterson 9:31 ↗
And you see that auction price rise. So it's not all just the pre-deaf stuff. It's now becoming that 7-year-old one that's just right.
Casey Seymour 9:40 ↗
Yeah.
Greg Peterson 9:40 ↗
And this goes back, you know, one thing I've been telling the farm... not telling them, but just like our auction data screams it, is when you take great care of your equipment, it basically says it pays to take great care of your equipment. So whatever you can do to facilitate that. And now it's interesting, farmers are very smart. I'm starting to see more, if it's a private sale situation or even at auction, if they're having their own retirement, starting to see the farmer on a video talking about their equipment. So our friend Adam Marshall with Adam Marshall Land and Auction out of Kearney, Nebraska, last night posted a video. He's got a farmer, I think his last name is Buell. I can't remember if it was Mike. The sale's today, as we're talking, it's happening right now, but Adam got his camera and put Mike front and center next to his tractor and combine and said, 'Mike, tell me about your tractor.' Now, Mike happens to have that stuff that you and I are talking about, that, 'Ooh, look at that. It's just right.' And now when you combine seeing the farmer talk about it, now you've turned maybe a premium into a double premium because the guy sitting up in Minnesota goes, 'Oh, look at that Magnum tractor that's selling today, Adam Marshall in Nebraska selling.' And I heard the farmer talk about it. And that's why we're starting to see, you know, that part of the business is exciting. Auctioneers and dealers and farmers figure out new ways to market your used equipment and unlock these premiums, you know, that used to be sort of semi-locked, where, you know, as a used equipment manager, you would take a trade from a great operator in Nebraska locally and everybody knew this guy and it's like, 'Oh, that's Joe's combine.' Oh, okay. Well, I'm willing to pay more because that was Joe's. We know Joe takes great care of it. And in 36 years I've seen that at auction, the same thing. So as this diamond-shaped bubble you're talking about works its way through, how do dealers deal with it? How do auctioneers deal with it? And again, if you're a farmer, again, like we've talked about down the stretch of 2025 here, I think the more proactive you are the better, because if you extrapolate what that diamond-shaped bubble... Casey, I'll throw this back to you. If the current environment stays like it is, new sales, not really much push, corn and beans are depressed. If say we go another 6 months, 12 months, 18 months, 24 months, what do you think that does to that bubble on the used equipment market?
Casey Seymour 12:25 ↗
Well, I think it just further solidifies a couple things. One, if this continues like this and we still see the same number of new equipment being sold, which I don't think... I don't see a future where there's going to be a huge number of used pieces or new pieces of equipment being sold, just because of the price. It really limits the people that can do that. You know, even if corn prices and soybean prices jump way up, I just don't see an environment where there's a lot of opportunity for everyone to go out and buy a new piece of equipment like we've seen in the past, right? Up until this point, hey, when we had $7 corn in the early 2000s and stuff like that, everybody went out and bought something new. It was just how it was and it was everywhere. And, you know, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015 time frame, you could tell that by stuff that was on the lot, right? There's a bunch of one-year-old stuff out there. I don't see a future where that comes into play. So what's that mean? So you open this door, this Pandora's box up now where you have this limited number of one- and two-year-old pieces of equipment on the marketplace right now. To me, this is kind of the... I would say if I go back, you know, if I'm still doing this as long as you've been doing it, Greg, and I turn back around and look at my career, to me, this is one of those points in time where I say this is when the market changed into something else. And I think this is... I mean, your only other option, if there's not a bunch of used equipment on the marketplace, is if your only other option is upgrade kits that we've been talking about since 2015, right? You start looking at all the different stuff out there that Precision Ag's been doing and, you know, Deere's got and all these different things. There's... I personally think there's going to be some bankers out there that are sitting and talking with the guys like, 'Hey, you probably can't afford, with your current situation, to go out and buy a brand new $800,000, $900,000 piece of equipment, but you can afford $250,000 or $300,000, and let's take a look at what's available in that space. Is it a late-model, low-hour something? Probably not. Is it going to be something that's 3 to 5 years old?' Well, that's what you already have. So your best option now is an upgrade. And I think that's... I think we're looking at a turning of the page of sorts when you start looking at how inventory fits into the market and all the stuff that goes on there, because ultimately, Greg, it's going to get... without the front end of the funnel being filled up and pushing it way down. And especially as you start kind of breaking down that middle part where there's a lot of inventory right now.
Greg Peterson 15:16 ↗
Yeah.
Casey Seymour 15:16 ↗
If it starts coming into play where you start seeing a 2-to-1 ratio, if you got, you know, let's just say you have 500 used combines, one-year-old combines on the marketplace, which I think right now we've got, as of this morning, there are 842 one-year-old combines, all makes, all models, sitting on the marketplace right now. And to say you have a 2-to-1 ratio as those machines start to trickle through, that's not a lot of used combines on the market, right? Right now we're at some of the lowest numbers we've seen in a while for combines.
Greg Peterson 15:48 ↗
It would be really interesting, isn't it, if we could go back and pull the accurate number on the one- and two-year-old combines where we were sitting, say, in 2022, if we'd had this conversation January 6th of 2022 or 2020 or 2015. But you're right. I'm with you. I think it's game-changing. I think the market has changed. This is why, again, I don't like to look backwards too much, but there are lessons. And I just... I was motivated to write that Farm Journal column a year ago and just said, folks, hey, this is a different ballgame, and because of the stuff we're talking about here, and, you know, the price of new is not, at least to now, not being adjusted downward. And, you know, the number one thing is the manufacturers want to hold that price point, and we understand why. So if that ain't coming down and it's got so high, and again, now again, I've never seen this period where basically the farming nucleus is going, 'Wow, do we really need as much iron?' So that can drift into a lot of different areas. I mean, do you rent? Do you share ownership? I mean, there's all kinds of different possible paths forward. The longer we stretch this out, it's just... and you and I, before we started recording, we were talking about one of the aspects of this, Casey, that you've noticed monitoring the retail side on the dealer lot, and I've definitely seen on the auction side, is that if you take good care of your stuff, it can have higher hours now and still be just as desirable at a higher hour range than 2, 3 years ago. You'd have thought, wow, that's too high hours. But now it's like totally at play, and we're seeing stronger auction pricing on good-condition stuff with higher hours. Everything's changing, and it's... I think wherever you're at on this, on the dealer side, on the lending side, on the farmer side, and hopefully manufacturers got their eyes open on the top end too, because, you know, you need to be paying attention to all these different factors because there are ramifications playing out. You know, we can't rely on what happened in the past to know what's going to happen the next year or so. Because like I say, in 36 and a half years, I've never seen a period where new sales are flat, no momentum, and used values are going up noticeably. That's new. So...
Casey Seymour 18:23 ↗
Yep. So I think you hit on something there. I think that's very important too. As the number of machines start to shrink, the opportunity of... do you even have what I want to upgrade to, right? Do I want to... I mean, I'm not just going to trade it for the sake of trading. Maybe I do, maybe I don't. But there's some options out there that are going to start pointing towards, well, I'm going to go ahead and run this one more year. You saw a lot of that coming out of COVID, just for the sheer fact of the number of machines that got cancelled. Guys ran them another year that didn't, or just flat didn't get the trade-in that they... And here they are today still sitting on this machine. These hours have gotten older or gotten longer on these machines, right? And I think that's a trend that you're going to see, like we were talking about before we started recording, that, you know, what used to be 500 hours maybe falling in the 750-hour range today. And the pricing that you're used to paying for at 500 hours now at 750 hours and so on and so forth down the line. All that stuff makes a huge difference in what the makeup of the equipment looks like. When I first started doing this, I used to break it into 0 to 300 hours and maybe break it into maybe 150-hour increments inside of that, but really it was kind of 0 to 300 because that was kind of, you know, I mean, you didn't have a lot of 50-hour machines. You didn't have a lot of 100-hour machines, but you had quite a few, you know, 300-hour and less stuff. Today, I think you kind of have to start looking at that a little bit different, and maybe you need to stretch that out to 500 hours now as kind of that approach. And where do those machines lay in there at? Again, like you said earlier, you know, one of the eye-opening experiences that I had way back when, you know, 5, 6 years ago, was a guy trading in a combine, and the combine he was trading in, the trade difference on the combine he was trading in was more than it cost new when he got it. Right. So, I mean, that's a huge... that's a shock. I mean, I paid $350,000 for this. Now you're telling me my trade difference is $400,000. Like, what? What? That's a sea change. Right. Right. So those are things that you pay attention to. Those are some of those, you know, canaries in the coal mine out there that really start pointing towards a shift in direction with the marketplace. And we're seeing some of that stuff take place now just because of, again, like you talked about, I don't see a big 2026 order-writing period for new across any of the manufacturers any more than what we saw last year. It may be a little bit here and there, but it's just the price of equipment's gotten to be so expensive that it's a select group of people, size of farming operation, number of acres, bushels, those kind of things that are going to be driving those new sales. And again, it's going to be the really big operations that are going to have the opportunity to buy, that can have maximum discounts from the manufacturers, that are going to be able to buy the new stuff. And it's going to again shrink the availability of the available machines that are out there. And again, that's a whole other conversation. We pretty much saw in the marketplace that about $600,000 is all that a used piece of equipment is someone's going to be interested in a piece of equipment at. How many pieces of equipment did you watch sell over $650,000 at auction this year?
Greg Peterson 21:32 ↗
Not too many. But I will tell you, one we did see one December 16th up in Canada, and it was the first AF11 I've ever seen sold at auction. Now, it did sell with a pickup head like they do in Canada, and I forget what the pickup pack would add to it, but it was a 2025 model AF11 with, I think it had like 250 engine hours on it or something. Sold for 1,157,000 Canadian, which equals 841,139 US. I found that fascinating in this current environment. Now, we talked a couple weeks ago about how many 2025 models are on the market. And this looked like a beautiful machine, but hard cash 841 when times are tough. Like, wow. And the same sale had two X91100s that, by the way, sold very strong. They were like... one was like 650, one was I think 6-ish. But you're right that there's always been a line on the auction side where you just... you know, it used to be 400,000, you couldn't break that, then it became 500, then it became 600. It feels to me sort of like the farm audience is saying enough. We don't want to drift that to 700 to 800. But then again, we just saw one for 841. So...
Casey Seymour 22:53 ↗
Yeah.
Greg Peterson 22:54 ↗
You know, I don't know. It'll be fascinating to see. I see this exact same thing played down through the age of equipment, Casey. So again, I mentioned that 7810 that brought 75K yesterday in Ohio. On New Year's Eve, my friend Jeff Boon out in Indiana had a farm sale for David Squire's New Year's Eve. Centerville, Indiana, he had a Magnum 7120 two-wheel drive. Looked just sharp, beautiful, 4,902 hours. Went for 60K. Now to hit 60K in Machinery Pete's auction world, up until recently, you had to have like a 2,100-hour 7120. 4,900, it wasn't happening. Now we see it right and left. And so it's the same trend that we were talking about on the 3 to 5-year-old stuff.
Casey Seymour 23:52 ↗
Yeah, yeah. It's going to be interesting to watch how the year plays out. And again, tracking these numbers through and what things look like. You got a big USDA report coming out on Monday the 12th that will basically kind of say either we hit the number or we didn't hit the number that the USDA put out in final numbers, which everything kind of points to that it's not going to, but we'll see what the USDA says, and that's always a fun conversation. But watching those things happen and you watch things move out again, kind of like we've talked about in the past, where, you know, equipment purchases start falling in on the list of things that I need to make sure that I get paid for first. It's falling down on that list, and I think that's going to... especially right now, there's a lot of guys that are, you know, they got to get a lot of stuff chewed up with banks and other things and buying inputs and all that kind of stuff to make sure they can move forward there. And we're moving into, you know, renewal season when we start looking at lines of credit and operating notes and those kind of things for the farm. So that's going to paint another picture on top of that. So it's a lot of stuff to pay attention to here the first quarter of the year.
Greg Peterson 25:02 ↗
Yeah. You know, one thing, Casey, I go back to your diamond shape. I'm kind of a visual learner. Despite being a numbers guy, I find visuals are very helpful. So when you talk about that diamond shape, where that glut is, and for years I've told people through various cycles that our dad has sort of screamed, the value buy on the used equipment side is in that 3 to 7-year-old range, because there tends to be a lot of it out there. And then, you know, from doing this 36 years, people know Machinery Pete kind of says once you get to be 10 years old and you've got a clean, low-hour machine, like you talked about, do you have the right machine? Is it really good condition? Tell you what, if you got a 10-year-old, well-maintained, lower-hour combine, skid steer, tractor, combine, sprayer, that has always been valuable, and I think it's going to get more freaking invaluable. So because of all this stuff we just talked about. So in that wider part of that diamond bubble right now, in that... you're in that... what did you say? Three to...
Casey Seymour 26:09 ↗
Three to five. Yeah, 3 to 5.
Greg Peterson 26:11 ↗
Okay. Now, if I'm a farmer, I'm scouring that wide part of the bubble, 3 to 5 years old, and I'm looking for just the right machine with the lowest hours. And if you can acquire that now, you know what? Your local dealer would be happy to, you know, take one off their lot and accommodate you there. You take care of that thing and keep the hours a little bit low on it. Once that's 10 years old, you're going to have... you're going to have what everybody wants. So I think to me that's an opportunity here in 2026. It wasn't 2025. I think it'll still be early, at least the first part of 2026, until if the wide part of that bubble shrinks down and we get back to what we saw in 2021 where there just wasn't any used. That's the danger to me, is that that bubble could shrink down and we could... then you're going to be whatever you need, new or used going forward. It's going to be 2021 again. And you're not going to like that because you're going to have to pay too much on the used market and you're not going to be able to get it on the used side because dealers are only going to have X amount to sell. So...
Casey Seymour 27:21 ↗
Yep. Yeah. And those are all that course-line trajectory that you're talking about there when you start looking at how do machines value proposition. This might be one of those first times in farm equipment history where you could sit there and say it actually is going to pay me better to run my machine longer than it is, just because when it comes down to the value, right? So you start looking at how many people out there can afford a... I'm just throwing numbers out here, you know, a $500,000 used something to a $350,000 used something to a $125,000 used something. Like, where are those buying? How many people are in those buckets and ready to buy? And if you don't have a lot of people that can buy it at 500, then you better look at 350 and start seeing about what's that mean to my operation to run my machine one more season or two more seasons or whatever that looks like, because throughput and depreciation, those lines meet someplace. If you can ever figure out where your throughput and depreciation meet, that's the best time to sell your piece of equipment. And I think those equilibriums are going to be looked at a lot harder over the next couple of years than have in the past.
Greg Peterson 28:43 ↗
You know, this is so much fun with you every week, Casey, talking about these things because you're like me at heart. You're taking what's real now, data, and for the benefit of dealers or farmers, you're looking forward, and we're just trying to talk, break things up. Now, one thing I would add to this mix that's a very... from a data perspective, it's a pretty important piece of the puzzle, is you were talking about how many farmers for different dollar buckets. One thing we have to keep an eye on is just the number of farmers. Now, through October of 2025, the number of auctions was up 15%. And in 2024, it was all dealer auctions. 2025, it was farmers. And I haven't calculated the latest numbers yet that take into account November and December, but it was a freaking tidal wave of farm auctions in November and December. So that 15% is going to be pushing, my guess is, 18 to 20%. And in this K-shaped economy, if we keep drifting forward, you know, in terms of old... I'm 60, farmers older than me, you know, tiring of the equity drain. Will we look back at 2025 as the first year of the next big... you hate to say it, but the number of farmers really condensing, and how hard is it to replace, you know, how many new farmers are coming in. So that's the other thing you have to look at, you know, in those $500,000 to million-dollar buckets of new or used equipment as the number of farmers continue to shrink. How does that affect these buckets? And it is what it is, I guess. But it's a noticeable trend, the number of auctions going up like it has.
Casey Seymour 30:33 ↗
Yeah. And it's the number of new farmers coming in that have never farmed before, that don't come from a generational exchange somewhere down the line. It's, you know, what that costs to come be a farmer. I mean, it's just... it's next to impossible, I think, to become a farmer, and really with the dollars associated with that. You know what I mean? It's hard to figure that out.
Greg Peterson 31:01 ↗
It's harder. I think it's harder than anything else, any other industry.
Casey Seymour 31:05 ↗
Yeah, I would agree. And I think that we live in a country where things are still possible. Are they easy?
Greg Peterson 31:11 ↗
Oh, yeah.
No, they're super hard. I have two examples I want to bring forward in Machinery Pete podcast coming up, maybe to give some hope along these lines. One with a 71-year-old farmer who's retiring, but with a definite eye towards trying to help. You know, he can cash out and, you know, he could get one check and we call it all good and that's easy and clean. But he's like a lot of most farmers that I know, they're concerned about their communities, little towns like where I grew up. And maybe there's some individual things that can happen, but if these macro trends with these numbers continue like we're talking about, I just wonder how long it will be until, you know, government will be forced to, or states to, like, holy cow. I mean, we got an issue here. We have to figure out some pathway forward for young people to get into farming at somewhat of a scale, or else this data that you and I are talking about... I mean, one of my Machinery Pete truths is that math is math, and you can yak at it all you want. It doesn't matter. Math is math, and we got problems coming. So we got to figure out some answers to those.
Else we do so at our own peril.
Casey Seymour 32:39 ↗
That's for sure.
Greg Peterson 32:41 ↗
Not to be the cranky old guy.
Casey Seymour 32:44 ↗
Yeah. No, you're right though. I mean, that's and that's where all this automation talk comes from. That's where all this, you know, robots and this that and the other thing and AI and all that. That's that's they're trying they're trying to fill the void with that and whatever, you know.
Greg Peterson 33:02 ↗
Different paths forward and they all can be valid, but we need we need paths and they're just there haven't been many clear paths to your point before. It's like, well, how the heck do you get started?
Casey Seymour 33:13 ↗
Exactly. I mean, it's it's pretty impossible, but yeah.
Greg Peterson 33:17 ↗
We'll we'll we'll try to shine a light on a few paths that were that have been successful and maybe like maybe that kickstart some other ideas. That's the value of doing the stuff we do, Casey, is that some little shard we're yakking about, somebody goes, you know, well, what about this, though? And then that's where a good idea comes from. So we need a lot of we need a lot of good people thinking about this stuff.
Casey Seymour 33:39 ↗
For sure. For sure. All right, Greg, good place to stop. Folks want to reach out to you, have you come to their auction or speak at an event, what's the best way to do that?
Greg Peterson 33:48 ↗
Yeah, just hit our website, machinerypete.com, folks. There's an email link and a phone number. Call our office. We got great people there. I'm heading to Arkansas tomorrow to preview an auction by Witcher Auctions. Kirk and his team down there. Fantastic. Sales in Pocahontas, Arkansas, January 22nd. We'll feature it on the TV show. So it'll be great fun to get down to Arkansas and yeah, talk to some farmers down there.
Casey Seymour 34:11 ↗
Right on. Take your shotgun, go do some duck hunting while you're down there. Good duck hunting down that way. So,
Greg Peterson 34:17 ↗
I'm you know, it's it's actually about 40 degrees in Minnesota today. I looked and it was about 60 some in Arkansas. So I'll be happy for that.
Casey Seymour 34:25 ↗
There you go. There you go. All right, Greg. Appreciate you being on the podcast. We'll talk to you again next week.
Greg Peterson 34:30 ↗
You bet. Have a great week, Casey.
Casey Seymour 34:31 ↗
All right. Stay tuned for more Moving Iron Podcast after these messages.
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Welcome back to Moving Iron Podcast. I got Sean Hackett on here to talk about what's happening in the marketplace. Sean Hackett is with Hackett Financial out of Boca Raton, Florida. Wow. Can't talk this morning. Sean, how you doing this morning?
Sean Hackett 35:18 ↗
I'm doing super good. Recharged from a restful Christmas and New Year's and I'm getting ready for, you know, a wild and woolly 2026. Obviously, the invasion of Venezuela has started the new year with a bang.
Casey Seymour 35:35 ↗
No pun intended.
Sean Hackett 35:36 ↗
Yeah, no pun intended. Yeah, you're right. That's a that's an odd scenario. You look at some of the situations they have down there. I guess that's probably what we were doing talking about what we were going to talk about. Sorry, I should have brought this up, but you know, you look at what that's done for the price of oil and it's not really moved much, but you figured that since it's one of the OPEC nations that there'd be some one way or the other, you figured the marketplace would move and it really hasn't gone anywhere. So I guess that's more of a testament to supply out there, Sean. But I guess looking at oil, what are your thoughts or kick it off that way? Well, remember like 20 years ago, Venezuela was producing like almost 8 to 10% of world production. They were a major player. They produced that hard that that thick grade that's really really good for making diesel.
Casey Seymour 36:22 ↗
It's a different grade than Light Sweet Crude, for example.
Sean Hackett 36:25 ↗
But then of course Chavez got in there and then Maduro got in there, stole everything from the company. All the infrastructure collapsed, production collapsed and now I think they're barely 0.8% of world production. So they just don't really matter to the global. So I think the reason that oil didn't really react much is because they don't really matter right now. Now, they have a lot of oil reserves, expensive oil reserves, meaning if you're going to go get them. This is not your your cheap cost of production barrel, you know, per barrel kind of supply. It just doesn't work at this price level, Casey. No one's going to go in there and put a bunch of billions and billions of dollars to rebuild infrastructure with oil in the 50s. It just, you know, I mean, I I cost production is $20 higher easily to get that the crude out of the ground there. And even if they did decide, you know, the Schlumbergers and the Halliburtons came in and the Exxons came in and pumped money back in there, you know, it's at least, you know, five years before you would see what I would consider to be a material impact. So so there's nothing there's nothing that this is going to change the supply demand equation for crude oil anytime soon. And it certainly ain't going to change it with oil in the mid-50s. It's just not that crude oil. Now, maybe Saudi Arabia can still make money producing oil because they have the lowest cost per barrel in the world, but definitely not Venezuela. So to me, you know, I think it was more of a strategic geopolitical move because Maduro and China, Maduro and Russia were getting pretty cozy and then Russia talked about maybe putting some missiles in there and all that sort of thing. I think the real reason we went in there, yeah, I know that they use they're they're using the oil as the reason because they don't want to tell people that they're really doing it for geopolitical reasons, but for the most part, I just think we we did this to tell Russia and Ukraine, I mean, Russia and and China, you know, back off. You ain't coming in here. Just back off. That's my personal opinion. And and so I don't think this is going to be a material event to crude whatsoever. And at the end of the day, crude oil production is going to start to fall until prices go back up. And so I think this mid-50s is, you know, no one can ever say for sure when it comes to crude oil. But I mean, be hard for me to think that anyone in the world is going to allow crude oil to fall much below $55 a barrel. I mean, I don't think so. I think we're at the low end of a of of the calendar year trading range. And I think somewhere this year, you're going to see oil back at 65 or 75 for whatever who whatever reason. But I I think that the negativity, the bearishness, the one-sided trade is so one is so extreme right now on the negative side. You know, we're probably at a at a low. You know, if I'm if I'm a contrarian and I need physical diesel or I need physical gasoline or I need physical you know, oil energy of any sort when it comes to crude oil derivatives or anything. I, you know, I think this be a time to put some put some physical energy in my tanks. That's what I'd be doing. So,
Casey Seymour 39:49 ↗
Yeah. Yep. Okay. All right. Sean, let's jump over and talk about a couple things. You had a report come out last week. So, folks, if you haven't signed up for Sean's report, it's well worth your time. Go check that out and and talk to Sean about what what that report is. A lot of great information in there. I don't know. We started talking about weather here about about, you know, June, July last year, kind of what you thought, you know, what your long-term weather cycle look like moving into this winter. And so far, you've been you've been exactly exactly right with what you thought was going to happen. The western half of the United States has stayed warm and dry. I went to went down to into Colorado. Over into Wyoming over the weekend, and there's not a terrible amount of snow up in up in the mountains, which is a which is a bad sign for us out here in in the area where we require a lot of irrigation, ditch water, those kind of things to to to flow. So, hopefully we'll get some more snow here as things roll on. Otherwise, it's going to be a tough planting season for us and growing season as well. But if you look east, you talked a lot about cold weather and you know, everyone I've talked to east here is cold, snowy. Lots of snow on the ground and especially if you move up in the northern parts of the United States, those temperatures have stayed stayed cold just like you talked about, Sean. As you look through your thought process moving forward with this, talk a little bit about what you see happening as you know, you you talked about somewhere in in mid to late January to seeing a another big burst of of cold weather come through. You start looking at some forecast starting to see that make its way in there. So I guess Sean, as you're looking at this, talk a little bit about your long-term weather forecast.
Sean Hackett 41:33 ↗
So so we had this record cold from late November into the middle part of December and then we had we've had this warmup. In fact this week it's extremely warm but kind of a blowtorch week coming up here. That's a little bit of a surprise for me. You know, if I would if I'm, you know, always trying to be truthful about a forecast, you know, if I'm going to I I thought we'd have a little more moderation. I didn't think we'd have this big back and forth like we had last year. But there's reasons to believe that this might be the last one of these. First of all, the La Nina is rapidly going away. La Nina tends to cause a lot of this back and forth cold warm cold warm type of volatility. But but it but the if you look at the way that this La Nina is developing, I think we're going to be out of La Nina by the late part of January. Casey, and if you get rid of La Nina and you get into just neutral phase that probably that that is going to provide a much more stable cold more persistent cold period not as much back and forth like we've just seen. So I think that's the first thing to to remember. Second thing is the MJO which is the Madden-Julian Oscillation we've talked about on your show many times which is this tropical convection that floats around the center of the earth at in various ways and they measure the phases it's phases 1 through 8 and it just determines where is it around the globe okay and there's certain phases that are needed to to to create the air transport of cold to come into to the center east of the country. Those phases are phases 7, 8, and 1. And if you look at where the MJO is is right now, we're in phase six, and we're going to be rotating into 7 8 and 1 all the way out into mid-November. And then what's what looks like if you run analogs, it's going to kind of kind of collapse into like a very weak null phase. Whenever we've seen a winter like that where you go into the cold phases and then you collapse into kind of a a non-signal, it it provides a more persistent repetitive cold wave deeper into this into the season. So that is what I was looking for because that's been my forecast that I I am surprised of this this this warmup we've had. I I didn't expect the MJO to be this this strong in phase six which allows for more of this. But but everything should really deliver here later this month in natural gas which is had a big surge has had a big now the market's trading like there's never going to be a winner again for the rest of our lives. The market has just lost its mind on natural gas. It's it's completely lost its mind about what's going to continue to happen here.
December was a top five cold winter, even though there was volatility. January, January is going to start warm, it's going to end cold. I still think when it's all said and done, January is going to be a top five cold January. Just not just not persistent, you know. So, if I'm thinking through, like I said with crude oil, you know, if I need physical natural gas, if I need physical propane or derivative products based upon natural gas at this price level after this take down on this overreaction to this brief warm-up period, which is not going to last in our in our view, my goodness, I just think this, you know, if you're looking to, you know, you lock in some physical gas, natural gas of any kind, I mean, I would think this is an awfully awfully good opportunity here. If you look at the strip price, which is the 12-month forward price for natural gas, and you it's the average price for the next 12 months, we're at we're we're testing levels that we saw in late September, October of last year, which was the lowest 12 month strip price we've had in eight years. So, we're testing eight-year lows on the 12-month forward strip price at this moment in time. That is unsustainable in my opinion and it's unjustified in my opinion. So, you know, love the volatility, hate the volatility, but it does offer opportunities if you have the ability to take action when it if if if you're on the, you know, depending on what side you're on. I just think you're getting a great opportunity to to lock in some very economical natural gas and propane for for the one to two years ahead, then that's what I would be thinking about for sure.
Casey Seymour 46:24 ↗
Yeah. Okay. All right. Thinking about where you're at now, you talked a lot about some real opportunity to see some cold weather come in, delay or prolonged winter into into March into planting season. You still in that camp?
Sean Hackett 46:39 ↗
Yes. Now, to me the the the better forecast in terms of what it means for markets is KC winter wheat for example. I think that is where I would be looking for a weather related reaction. You know, getting one of those shots right here in the center east part, you know, north you know, Oklahoma into Texas into into, Kansas, you know, where they grow the KC winter wheat. You could get some you could get some in SRW wheat a little further east, no question about it. To me, I think that's where I would be expecting a weather related effect. You come out of dormancy, there won't be a lot of snow cover. You throw that kind of frost onto a winter wheat market, it would certainly create some excitement. And the other thing you have to remember has been an awfully awfully dry in the western plains. And I think it's going to stay pretty dry. So the drier the air, the easier it is to cool down and to get a flash frost. You know, a flash frost doesn't have to last very long. It doesn't have to be a week of cold. It just needs to be one really strong cold night and you'll do the and you'll do the deed. So, and if you get if you if the winter wheat market takes off because of a frost, well, corn's going to go up. Mhm. Well, if corn goes up, soybeans are going to like, you know, like you need a catalyst to get the shorts to cover and then to start the battle for acres and all the things that that that would would put into place. And so I think that if I'm thinking through the weather related effect is more from a winter wheat being too dry and too cold than necessarily, you know, the market the market is very very reticent to trade delayed planting very often, Casey. It's just doesn't like to trade that very often. It's very hard to get the market excited about delayed planting because the because we can plant the entire crop in two weeks. You know, the market always feels you you're eventually going to get two weeks of a window and you're going to get it all planted. And so I think that the better thing to watch is for winter wheat to have a weather related effect during spring to excite corn and soybeans and then to watch for okay it's in the ground. It's dry and now it's hot in June. Oh we had the sun tide torque thing that Sean talked about. Oh that's right. The the the the moisture from Tonga is gone. Maybe the 2023 near miss Gleissberg cycle is finally going to occur in the in the 92-year differential which is this the statistically widest range we've seen in a thousand years. I mean I think that's the scenario that I'd be looking at more specifically not necessarily that a colder spring is going to delay planting and cause excitement. I think it's going to be around dry cold weather around winter wheat specifically more likely KC winter wheat exciting the market. And you know, certainly the only other weather catalyst that I can see soybeans are done in Brazil. They're made. It's done. The crop's done. I don't really think you could hurt it now. For the most part, I think it's going to be very big and substantial and that's a done deal. First half of the growing season is all about soybeans and they're going to have a big crop. Those supplies are going to come in. So very very very hard to get excited about soybeans from South America. Even if Argentina dries out, Casey, they're so small relative to Brazil. I mean, they produce 50 million metric tons of soybeans and and Brazil produces 180 185. I just don't think it matters. Now, it could matter to corn, though. So, where I would be focused on weather in South America, I just I just don't see soybeans being able to generate a weather related excitement. But corn, it can because if it dries out in February in Brazil, like I believe it's going to, and it dries out in Argentina with some heat in Argentina, well, you have 50 million metric tons of corn production in Argentina, and you have about 80 million metric tons of corn production during the second crop corn. So there's 130 million metric tons of corn out of 70 total that's going to be impacted potentially by dry weather and potentially dry hot weather in Brazil that could generate a weather related move for corn. So but but like I said, if corn goes up, soybeans aren't going down. You know, it would it would drag the drag soybeans up by their bootstraps, you know, right? But but I would look for a corn related potential for South America. But not this month. Not this month. And the weather looks really, really good. And we're not even we start planting in February anyway, Casey. So it's hard to get excited about set crop corn when you haven't even started planting yet. But if you start planting in dry soil and it gets drier, you know, you you'll you'll the market will start paying attention. And then of course we have this USDA report for coming out on Monday.
I don't expect anything exciting on wheat or soybeans at all. I I think I don't think we're going to I don't think there should be anything. But on corn, I expect a there should be a significant decline in yields. Very very meaningful decline in yields like we saw last year. Multiples and multiples of of yields down whether they come all the way down to where they should or not, but I think they'll come down enough and the market will have to recalibrate enough that I think we can get a material change in the price of corn from the low fours to the upper fours. Not that that is going to create anyone anyone to click their heels and buy their island on Fiji, but 480 corn pencils out a hell of a lot better than 440 corn when margins are as razor thin as they are. And so so corn's got a lot good has a lot of good things going on with it. Exports have been outstanding on corn. We don't need China. We they could they could they could leave the earth as we know it and corn will be just fine. We know soybeans obviously you know are struggling without consistent Chinese demand. We know cotton is struggling without consistent Chinese demand. Although at this price level the amount of acres that we will plant for for for cotton is going to be so low. At some point at some point you you get the acreage numbers so wrong and demand come eventually does come back that you get a complete mismatch. I would view rice and and cotton as two markets where the economics are so bad and the cost production is so high and the amount of cost of inputs to put those crops down and the cost of equipment is so high that you're only going to absolutely plant acres that literally cannot be planted to anything else. And and and and when you get acres that low, in my experience, something happens with demand, even if it's just a six-month or 12 month bump up in demand for a short period of time, you have mismatch. And I think those two markets are just have a massive massive mismatch coming up. And you wouldn't need a whole lot of demand increases to create a significant tightness in the market. Our our calibration on cotton and rice. Even if demand stays where it's at based upon what we think the acres are going to be, we could be looking at ending stocks broaching, you know, 30-year lows in both those markets for the next crop cycle. So, you know, you know, I both markets are starting to show some life at the beginning of the year. If you look at cotton, it's up, I think, a point already. And same thing for for rice. Almost up a dollar already off the lows. You know, I I think there's just I just I can't concede that those markets are going to allow prices to stay this low through planting season. I think they're going to have to do something to tell somebody, you know, maybe you should plant some some some cotton or rice because it's just those two crops are so expensive to put in the ground. So, those are interesting markets to pay attention to based upon just ridiculous lopsided economics at this point. So,
Casey Seymour 55:28 ↗
Yep. Okay. You touched on a little bit earlier and it was was one of the questions I'll make sure I ask you, but you talked about in your report a little bit that there was a the last time that we saw a high sun tide torque force on the oceans with no El Nino, it presented the driest May and June time frame since the 1930s and last time I saw this is back in about 2023 and it was really really dry and we got timely rains just I mean just I mean saved it if just perfectly matched rain. Sean, as you're looking at this, explain first off explain what high sun tide torque force is and then also what does that mean as we go into into 2026.
Sean Hackett 56:12 ↗
Well first of all in 23 we were going from a La Nina to an El Nino. We we are converting over El Nino didn't kick in until the fall. We're looking at exactly the same scenario and La Nina's ending. We're going to El Nino but it won't really kick in until the fall. Those kind of years can be very very dry. If you have the right setup for some other teleconnections like the negative Pacific Decadal Oscillation which is the temp the sea surface temperature differential out in the Pacific where it's warm out west and it's cooler near the coast. We're going to have that scenario. And then we have cooler sea surface temperatures in North Atlantic that tends to want to produce dry weather in the Midwest. If the weather is drier, it can be much hotter. That's why Phoenix can get to 125 degrees. But Florida, we just can't get higher the hotter than 92 because our our humidity is so high. You can only get humid air so hot. It just doesn't It feels like it's 122 when you're there. It may feel that way, but the physical temperature is not right. I mean, the the nighttime temperatures can be super hot, like we saw last year in the Midwest that did hurt the crop. But dry air can get super cold, super hot. So, the drier the air, the more you can have extreme temperatures in both directions. In this case, obviously, the hotter temperatures. One of the things that is we believe has kept July cooler than it should have been is the fact that we had this Tonga eruption, this one in 10,000-year event that has never been a part of any past 89-year Gleissberg cycle before. It's the first time we've ever had one of these. And it has pumped has been pumping a tremendous amount of water vapor in our atmosphere as those aerosols have been precipitating out of the stratosphere going into our atmosphere and then leaving. Fortunately the government NASA measures this on a monthly basis and if you look at where those moisture levels are now in the stratosphere, we are back to normal. We're back to where we were before the Tonga eruption went off, which means that the precipitating out of this these aerosols is over. And so we should be back to a to the atmosphere acting normally again instead of getting pumped with this this this moisture, which means it can be drier and hotter now than it's been the last several years. And I would have argued if it wasn't for Tonga, 23 would have been a Gleissberg cycle year. I don't think there would have been any way that you could have brought moisture in the month of July because you know Casey where it's dry it tends to stay dry unless you have a dramatic climatic change that occurs to override it and we didn't have a dramatic climatic change. We just had these showers come in out of nowhere that just were really unexplainable and they just sort of dropped this rain and it just, you know, I I I can't say I know for sure it was these aerosols precipitating out, but I can't come up with another rational reason as to why that happened in 23. 2021 was another year, by the way, that we had a very high sun tide torque force on our oceans. What this means, Casey, is the sun, the earth, Saturn, and Jupiter interact with each other and they alter the gravimetric forces and those forces and how they're applied to the Earth's oceans. So, we know that we get those high tide, low tide every day. We know there's a thermal line system, that's this river that equilibrates the tropics with the north. But we also have upward motion and downward motion gravimetric forces. Casey, in this case the planets are in such a way that it causes maximum upside force in our oceans and that's what we have this year. Now in 21 do you remember what happened in 21?
Casey Seymour 1:00:16 ↗
Um, no.
Sean Hackett 1:00:17 ↗
We had a Gleissberg cycle drought in the northern plains.
Casey Seymour 1:00:21 ↗
Oh I do remember that it was dry. Yes I do remember that. Spring wheat, Minneapolis spring wheat yields were down 35% from from the trend.
Sean Hackett 1:00:29 ↗
Canada had a Gleissberg cycle drought that year. Now, it didn't come down to the ice states and so corn soybeans were fine. But so, think this through. We had a Gleissberg cycle drought in 2021 when we had high sun tide torque. Remember now that was before Tonga went off. Okay. And we had a lot of heat. 23. We had the driest May, June since the 1930s, but we had a cool July with timely rainfall. And now we have another one of these. This is the last one of these we're going to get, Casey, for the rest of the decade. We're not going to get another spike in this sun tide upward motion torque on the oceans. This is the last one of these. But the last two times we had it, we had a near miss in the ice states and we had a Gleissberg cycle drought in the northern plains into the Canadian prairies. So this this particular signal is is is quite impactful. And so the fact that we're having it again happen this year with an in the La Nina to El Nino conversion and everything and and the precipitating out of those water vapor aerosols says that this is a year that we need to pay really really close attention to again and and and maybe instead of getting to the one yard line and fumbling the ball and and and not being able to score a touchdown for the Gleissberg cycle, you know, maybe this time we're able to take the ball to the end zone and we and we and we actually get a full manifestation of a cycle that's repeated for 11 centuries. I don't wish this upon anyone in the Midwest, but you know, statistically, there's only there was one time in the last thousand years that we had a 92-year differential between Gleissberg cycles. The 92nd year would be 2026. The only the last thing I will mention is that Clyde Ballinger who's a famous physicist and scientist that did a lot of meteorological work did a long-term analysis of Midwest moisture and he looked at the Hale cycle. The Hale cycle is two 11-year solar cycles. So you start year one at the beginning of the first 11 year solar cycle and you just keep counting until you get to the to 22 which is the end of the second 11-year solar cycle. And he found that in year two in year 9 and in year 17 historically the the the sun's activity produced consistently lower moisture for the Midwest. It doesn't mean major drought every single time, okay? It just meant on average those were lower moisture years consistently. So if you're going to look for a major drought, they you're going to you need to look for them on those points on the Hale cycle. It just so happens that 2026 is year 9. And by the way, 2012 was year two. Just as an example. So 1988 was year two as just as an example. So it's another dot on the map that says this is a year to be very mindful that that there's a lot of things that are happening that that that support this could be something more more sinister here. And if it if those if those water vapor aerosols were still precipitating out, you know, I I would be very cautious, much more cautious. But given that the that the evidence says that they're no longer coming out, that they've already precipitated out and we're and we get a clean slate this year, I'm much more you know, I'm much more worried about what the outcome's going to be this coming season without that extra moisture coming in. That was was a blessing for the Midwest to not have to have those moisture levels because it's allowed for generally speaking production to come out all right for the most part. I mean, yeah, there's been some problems up north in the 21. There was some problems in in the West in 22. You know, there's been some issues, but for the for the core grain belt, I think that Tonga has been a blessing, but but I don't think that's going to be the case in 23 in a in 26. And we just have to see if we get the right setup going into you know, going to May, June, and July. And and the key is obviously if we get another hot dry May and June like we had in 23, you know, are we going to pull a rabbit out of the hat again or or are we going to finally get a July that delivers the goods, which it has not delivered the goods since the since the 2012 drought, which was the last time we had a hot dry July. So we'll see. But all I can tell everyone is that that everything I've just mentioned supports being very very concerned about this upcoming growing season in the Midwest in order more because the clear evidence that the Tonga effect is now waning and we're seeing by the way global temperatures are starting to really fall as we talked about how you know the the spike in temperatures came from Tonga the heating effect from the water vapor. Now they're everything is unwinding. The Tonga effect is unwinding and that sets up some more clarity for 26. And now we're now now think this through a little further. El Nino is coming. In year six, year seven from the trough of the 11-year solar cycle has consistently produced an El Nino every single year for 156 years. Well, 26-27 is 6-7 from the trough that was 2020. So, we're going to have an El Nino. It's going to start in the fall and it's going to accentuate into the following year. And so, what does what does that mean for South America? It means central northern Brazil is about as hot and dry as you can possibly get when you have an El Nino. Meaning the worst weather that you can possibly get is for center north Brazil is in El Nino. And that means that soybeans may finally potentially catch a weather problem in the next crop cycle for Brazil because if you don't hurt Brazil, it just doesn't matter, right? It just doesn't it just doesn't matter. So you got to hurt Brazil. The only way you hurt Brazil, you got to hurt Brazil in the first part of the growing season. It's got to be center north because that's where all the all the production goes. So if you think this through, you get potentially major crop problem for soybeans and then the El Nino continues. What does El Nino do? It's it's death for second crop corn. So we've had probably one of the most docile weather patterns the last 12 months for grain specifically that we've seen in a very long time. Like we we
Greg Peterson 1:07:42 ↗
We didn't have a single weather-related rally during our growing season. Not one, not even a day. That's like a one-in-20-year event where you get no weather-related rally during the summer growing season in the US. So what I'm getting at is we have the potential for a kind of a trifecta of US adverse weather for the Midwest. You know, of what we just mentioned: El Nino kicking in, serious hot, dry weather for soybeans for the first growing part of the growing season, and then parlaying that drought into a disastrous second-crop corn scenario for the second half of the growing season in the first half of 2027. Boom, boom, boom. Like you could see a trifecta of the worst possible scenario for complementary weather problems in different regions that really, really matter to corn and soybeans. So we may be leaving this utopian weather situation that we've been in, and we may be entering. And of course, if it starts off with a dry and potentially flash-frost-ridden spring for winter wheat, which kicks off the whole thing, you know, you have yourself a scenario where a year from now we could be talking about how all these weather problems cause all kinds of problems and we're dealing with shortages in grains, even though everyone thinks we're going to have oversupplied grains for the rest of our lives. El Nino is also extremely bullish for sugar prices because India and Southeast Asia, Thailand for example, get super, super dry. Cocoa, West Africa tends to get super, super dry as an El Nino arrives. Rice. You know, these are markets that there's just a lot of different markets that are going to feel the tentacles of what is about to take place from this big switch over. And the very fact that we are not going to have extra moisture in the atmosphere means everywhere it's supposed to be dry, it could be drier. Everywhere where it's been not quite as hot, it could be a lot hotter. Like we could get back to some normal type of El Nino weather pattern because the last El Nino we had, Casey, was we had all this moisture coming out and all the dry weather that was supposed to happen overseas. It didn't happen. We had a lot more moisture than we were supposed to have. And so this Tonga has been just screwing around with weather forecasting, including myself. You know, it's been a challenge for me because you're trying to gauge to what extent Tonga is going to override the historical weather patterns, and the fact that we never had one, it's very challenging. So I'm really relieved that we don't have to worry about Tonga anymore and we can get back down to historical cycle statistics and correlations. And I think the upcoming year we're going to get a much better, clear read on weather, and I think we're going to have a lot more weather-related moves in agriculture. God knows we've had plenty of moves in the metals, and the metals are just about as bullish as you could ever imagine. And they typically go first, and typically, you know, the agriculturals will come along. You just need to get some weather involved, and I think we're going to get that. And that's the long-term picture going all the way out into 2027, and I think it starts in March. The beat drum of weather starts in March, and I think it progresses, and I think that's when the markets are going to wake up and play catch-up with some of the inflation that's been going on in the inflation and the metals prices and such.
Casey Seymour 1:11:34 ↗
Right on. All right, Sean, good place to stop. Folks want to reach out to you and get more information about what you're doing over Hackett Financial. What's the best way to do that?
Sean Hackett 1:11:41 ↗
Our website is hackettadvisors.com. We also have a Twitter page, LinkedIn page as well. From time to time we will put out some interviews that we've done, some different tidbits on some of the cycles we're looking at, some of the weather forecasts we're doing, so that those that are interested in how we look at the world of agriculture might find our work interesting and who watch your great show can gain value out of what they're doing in their agricultural operations.
Casey Seymour 1:12:12 ↗
All right. Well, Sean, I appreciate you being on the podcast. We'll catch you again next time.
Sean Hackett 1:12:15 ↗
Sounds great, Casey. Thanks so much.
Casey Seymour 1:12:17 ↗
All right. Thanks, Sean. Stay tuned for more Moving Iron podcast after these.
Narrator 1:12:25 ↗
Well, there they are, mocking you. See you next year. That weedy area that's got you thinking, man, I hate that spot. Wish I'd sprayed better. Get the last laugh with a sprayer upgrade from John Deere. Precision upgrades that can increase your sprayer's performance, like ExactApply. Advanced nozzles to give you more control at more speeds. It's just one of the many precision upgrades you'll find at johndeere.com. Now, let's see who's laughing.
Casey Seymour 1:12:54 ↗
All right, welcome back to Moving Iron Podcast. Got Aaron Finn on to talk about what's happening in the market. Aaron, how you doing, bud?

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APA

Peterson, G. (2026, January 8). Moving Iron: Kicking Off the New Year with Market Stabilization Signals [Interview transcript]. Moving Iron Podcast. CEOInterviews.AI. https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/3006631/

MLA

Greg Peterson. "Moving Iron: Kicking Off the New Year with Market Stabilization Signals." Moving Iron Podcast, 8 Jan. 2026. Transcript, CEOInterviews.AI, https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/3006631/.

BibTeX
@misc{peterson2026_3006631,
  author       = {Greg Peterson},
  title        = {Moving Iron: Kicking Off the New Year with Market Stabilization Signals},
  howpublished = {Interview transcript, Moving Iron Podcast. CEOInterviews.AI},
  year         = {2026},
  month        = {jan},
  url          = {https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/3006631/},
  note         = {Speaker-attributed transcript with timestamps}
}