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.
All right. Hello. Welcome to Moving Iron Podcast. This edition of Moving Iron Podcast is brought to you by John Deere. Got Greg Machinery Pete Peterson. Let's talk about what's happening in the marketplace. Greg, how you doing today?
I'm doing well. Casey, how are you doing?
Doing good, man. Doing real good. It's uh you travel like a like a road warrior here.
Yeah, it's been it's that time of the year, man. I hit a lot of shows and a lot of other stuff going on. So, I got to next week I'll be down you and I will be down in San Antonio together next week at Commodity Classic and uh we'll see some folks down there and we do some live recording down there. So, we don't get to record together very often. So, it'll be it'll be a fun trip.
Be fun. It'll be fun. Looking forward to it.
All right, man. So, we got a lot of moving parts here. We're coming up on March. March typically is one of the busiest auction months of the year, a lot of pre-ear planning and whatnot, and then you roll into last quarter of the year where you see a lot of things take place. As you look at the marketplace right now, Greg, you saw you watched a couple auctions here that you were pretty impressed with. Talk about what you saw there.
Yeah, a couple auctions uh as we're recording um just yesterday and the day before, Monday and Tuesday, February what 16th and 17th. So, our friends at Big Iron had a really nice uh farm auction on Monday the 16th in uh Brookfield, Missouri. I believe it was the Lane Revocable Trust Farm auction. Uh and man, strong prices. Uh I was getting pinged every which way about it uh as the sale wrapped up. So, couple of the highlights on the combine side. They had a a little older a 12 model Case IH 8120. Very nice. It had uh 1377 engine hours on it. No heads. So for 230,250 bucks, which when I looked machinerypete.com in our auction prices on an 8120, I mean, that's the third highest that I've ever seen. And it's it's actually the highest auction price on 8120 in over 14 years. So, and it's not, you know, it's a 12 model, so it's not like an 11 or 10, pretty deaf, but uh again, a super nice machine, uh well respected farm type of sale.
Uh this sale was interesting because it had a red combine, but then it had some John Deere tractors that sold really well. So, the hottest one I would say was probably the '04 John Deere 8520T, which you don't see a lot of those 20 plus year old uh track tractors like that. And this one was nice. 3,43 hours. Came in at 111,000 bucks. And that's the second highest auction price in a little over 13 years on an 8520T. Now, again, you don't see a zillion of them, but uh 111 was I thought really strong hard cash there. And then a little newer one, Casey. They had a 14, I think it was a 14 model, 8320R, 1784 hours. Again, very nice. Came in at 227 and a quarter, which is the highest auction price in 18 months uh on a 8320R. And then uh couple other ones. I I thought you might find this one interesting. We talk a lot about Draper heads and how that market has been. They had a 14 model John Deere FD7540 foot flex draper that went for 48750. Uh that's the I think last year all last year I only saw one higher at 49,000.
So kind of a bunch in that 40 the nicest ones in that 40 to 46 range but this came in 48750 again. It's a 14 model.
And then just a couple uh construction items which that market seems to be a little stronger of late. So they had a 14 model Caterpillar scraper I believe 13,000 13 yard scraper almost at 50 48 750 on that one as well. And then a nice dozer a 91 model. So it's hard to believe it's 35 years old but a cat D6H series 2 just just over $9,800 on it. That did 89 and a quarter. So again, I think that was a pretty lively sale there Monday out of Brookfield, uh, Missouri.
Yeah. Yeah, that's a uh there's some pretty strong numbers in there for uh for what it was. You know, if you look at at where they were what they were at, what they were looking at, it was pretty those are pretty strong numbers. Greg, when you're looking at this time frame right now, you look at March, what are some of the things that you really see over the years that you see during March that you don't see other times that you see? I always feel like you kind of got a little bit of everything in March. You It's like any other auction season. But it always felt like to me if you looked at like combine and harvesting equipment that seemed like that was one of the most you saw a lot of stuff in the end of the year too, but it felt like it was more prevalent in in this early time frame. Is that typically what you see too?
Yeah, you're exactly right, Casey. March you do see a little bit of everything. I think uh when I look at the data over the years, it's still the busiest month terms of raw number of auctions. Our data used to show now this would be back up until about 8 to 10 years ago. So pre-pandemic even before that ways, but it used to be I would write a lot about St. Patrick's Day was like a buoy in the water, right? And I always thought that the sales leading up to St. Patty's Day just a little bit higher. And then once you got past that, you started to get all these Saturdays with all the region. Every every region has two, three, four big consignment sales on that Saturday, mid to end of March. And you just you taking out all the buyers from late February, early March. But really, the last 8 to 10 years, I haven't seen that price difference. It's kind of flattened out. But you're right, you do tend to see dealers kind of getting a little active early in the year and they say, "Well, we got to let's move five combines or four skid steers or eight tractors or whatever." So, we start to see them show up either on their own events or on the online sales or um and now econ 101 would tell you more auctions would equal softer pricing, but it tends to be farmers, you know, they're optimist. they have to be to survive uh every year. So at least across a huge chunk of the country, you know, early March, it's you're getting that last minute item that you need before the coming season. You're optimistic, dollars are tight, but now farmers not buying as much new, so they want the best used. And I think that's why we see like what we saw Monday there on Big Iron with those good prices.
Yep. Okay, let's let's switch over and talk a little bit about the uh supply of what's on the supply of mark the supply of equipment on the market. Why I can't talk and what that looks like. So, if you look at where just just the raw number of uh machines that are out there, like we've talked about this quite a bit, but as you're looking at all right, you've got this many one-year-old whatever. So, you know, there's 1,200 300 plus horsepower tractors. There's 1,000ish uh you know 299 to 175 horsepower tractor. There's like less than 900 combines on the marketplace. There's just a handful of planters out there. You look at sprayers, they're the same way. Um and and the rest of those those have have really shrank from a long ways down. But as you're looking at sell bills right now, what are you seeing the most pop up right now? Like what's the most prevalent stuff that you look at? I we we talk a lot about 14 15 model stuff, 16 model stuff quite a bit. We talk a lot about um that that uh you know early 2020 2023 model stuff. We don't talk a lot about 25 24 model stuff. We have seen some of that stuff go through, but it's not near the volume that we've seen in the past.
Yeah, you're right. The 23 models, 22s and threes, whatever type of equipment. Yeah, there's there's definitely been more of those flowing through. Like you say, we we did see just recently, I think we talked about it last week on the podcast here, Casey, a sale with a 45, five model. There's Machinery Pete's two dogs. Mrs. Pete just got home with dinner. So, there you go. But, uh, and a salad, by the way. Uh, Machinery Pete's got to drop a few pounds anyway, so wish me luck. But, uh, yeah, the 25s, uh, before that sale last week, you know, when when I would see one, it would sort of be like, oh, especially a high horse tractor or combine. Uh, so I think like you you keep pointing out, you've done such an awesome job keeping tabs on the raw volume per category per by model year uh that uh compared to, you know, 18 months, two two and a half years ago, it's so much tighter. And I've been out on the road like you the last couple weeks speaking. I was down in Louisville. I was in Kentucky again. I was spoke in Minnesota Monday. So farmers have a lot of questions and they're they're noticing that there's not as much 24s and fives on the used market, whether that's on the lot or at auction. So, it's uh when they do show up, you know, it surprises me a little bit kind of they're they're tend to be going for a little more than I thought they would, but I think it's a reflection of that tightness that you're talking about.
Yeah. And it continues to stay that I mean, if you look at it, no one's I've talked to I don't know how many dealers over the last three or four weeks here, but um you know, there there's no one that has high hopes for any any big order writing periods for new equipment for 26 delivery, which is going to you know, if it stays the same, we're going to see probably even a a weaker marketplace. Now, from my seat on the bus, I like your opinion on this, but my seat on the bus, it feels like we're right sizing the inventory to where for what inventory costs versus where the economy's at versus all the things that are out there, this is the first time in my career where I can look back and say it feels like inventory levels anyway are are aligning with with the marketplace. And the more I look at it, the more comfortable I feel about we shouldn't see any huge, you know, blowups that are going to go out and cause some big ripple in the marketplace. Um, now that being said, the price of equipment is still as high as it's ever been and it's not going to it's not going anywhere, right? and still staying the same the same the same same uh you know levels that we see which I would question even if we were in a different economy would the price would new equipment be selling like any differently than it's selling now and I I don't I don't think that it would I don't think it really would I think we're we're seeing a a quote unquote new normal roll into place where there's other options out there now that you can take a hard look at not just on the used side but on upgrade side and all the stuff that's out There's a lot of different options you can run across this whole deaf thing that we see coming out now where how that's going to affect the marketplace um with with the leading of equipment and what's that mean and what's that look like that that's going to start throwing some ripples in in the marketplace too. we talked about before we started recording that that maybe in the back of some folks minds some of these auction scenes that we're seeing on this higher uh hour or this higher or older stuff that we're looking at that's got low hours on it maybe there's some of that thought process that hey I can go delete this now because they've they've rolled back all of those emission standards from from that and and I would think that from a from a manufacturer level you would see a similar um thing take place there as well. So, there's a lot of lot of things in the market right now that are really pointing towards not like some some massive scarcity by any means because we talk about it every day. There's no shortage of auctions going on right now. So, there's plenty of equipment on the farm coming this way. There's the the level of equipment that's on the lot uh at the dealership is is a good mix, I think, of what's there. So, it feels good. It feels like we're in a good spot. But that being said, there's there's some ripples on the outside that that are pointing towards, you know, when this kind of stuff happens, the the really really good stuff gets gets, you know, kind of skimmed off the top pretty quick and then you're kind of left with the next level stuff. And what typically happens when you get to that next level stuff, it it just kind of replaces the pricing of the stuff that just got taken off the marketplace and and you kind of see that stuff start coming up. So, looking at this, Greg, what what are your thoughts on that?
I think you're right, Casey. Uh I think the whole space as a whole is in a much much better place. Now, here's one hypothetical for you. This ripple that we're right sitting on the edge, all of us dealers, bankers, farmers, the whole deaf EPA ruling, it's like, oh my god. Oh, okay. That's out the window now. Well, buckle up, Susie. I mean, we're going to see what's going to happen here. But what if that would have happened? What if this would happen two years ago when dealers were sitting on that mountain of one two three-year-old used stuff? On their lots that they sold at auction in mass where we saw the 150% jump in one to threey old stuff at auction in in 204 in 2024. I think collectively to your point dealers you maybe wish it was a little lower but it's like okay it's kind of it's back between the buoys and so now we get this ripple with deaf and uh you know you could be right I mean like that take that 8320R that 14 model that just brought 227 and a quarter on Monday so that's a 12y old with under $1,800. So, whoever bought that, maybe that was part of the equation. Like, you know, even whatever I got to spend if I if I so choose to delete that now, what am I left with? I have a 12-year-old deleted low hour premium piece with the price of new still up here. So, it'll be fascinating to see all the way from the manufacturers to the dealers to the farmers how we wade through this because it's new. It's never happened before. Um, but I I've I would say this when Wall Street people come on like hedge funds and investment pools of money have been asking they always ask me hey machine you know what's happening on the used market because what they want to know is if the used market's going to be a drag on condition for new sales. They want to know when sales of new are going to take off. One thing I've been telling them for about a year now and we talk about it a lot is when you look over the edge of the rainbow because I mean what's right in front of us now Joe Farmer I mean like you said the mindset isn't there to go buy five new combines and buy a bunch of new stuff. It's just not it's not happening. But because of this tightening which you're monitoring and because of the strengthening auction prices we're seeing, I think it's almost potentially a little dangerous situation if you're a farmer to sit back too long and let all this sort itself out because if this go the ticking time bomb in there is is corn and beans and if they go up a little bit and stick. What you're going to have is that you're going to have a lot of farmers who haven't bought much new equipment for a long time and need to update their lines and manufacturers shut her down. They're not they plants are shut. Uh starting to hear ripples about opening, but you know, you could you could giddy up pretty quick there. Uh just like we did in 21. Uh so I'm I'm a little worried about that on the farmer side. Now, if you're a manufacturer or dealer, you that's probably a good thing because we're not we don't have as much new stuff stuck on the lot as 10 years ago, and we don't have as much used as we did two years ago. So, we're sitting better. The whole system is it's it's more it's more efficient. And again, I I think on the farmer side, that's you really got to pay attention to that because it's not like it was 10 years ago, I don't think. Now, all that said, now we just dropped this EPA ruling on it. So, it's it's like Katie by the door. How is this going to start shaking out? But, uh, what are your thoughts on that, Casey?
Well, I I think I think as you look at at things kind of cascading through right now, um, there's there's demand on certain levels of use equipment there, but there's no real demand on um the new side of it either. So, you have this like the stagflationish type of thing going on in the marketplace right now where there's not overwhelming large demand for used equipment. There's really not there's hardly any demand for new equipment right now. And if you if you watch those things out, you're like you're you're not it's just kind of there, right? There's just this flatness that you see happen.
One thing you said earlier that was very true. Um, you mentioned like when you skim off the the best quality of the used stuff like like we talked about on that big iron auction, you know, that's like it was super premium stuff and it got premium prices. One data point I saw develop all through last year 25 into the first two months of this year is nice condition stuff but has higher hour and it used to be the auction price would be in here and since we've started to lift if folks follow me on social they maybe have seen I write a note like okay that was the highest auction price on 8235R or whatever a 290 Magnum with over $3500 highest auction price in 33 months. So it used to be with those hours you wouldn't get that lift, but because the lower hour stuff is kind of started to lift, it pulls up. But it has to be good condition. If the condition is kind of so so crummy, then you know, I compile that data too, so you can swim in around and see how that you know, continues to slide lower. Uh but I I do watch the the good quality used. Is that trend lining up? Is it down? And it's definitely been uh strengthening as these recent numbers uh kind of attest to it. Actually, yesterday as we're recording this, uh Tractor Tuesday had an online auction. Uh they're kind of a a new play uh no fee for the seller. Uh but they had a 21 model Fendt 1040 Vario 16001 hours out of Luxembourg, Wisconsin. And Zach Bosley, the owner, dropped me a note. He said, "Hey Pete, look at this. We got 2945 and then I think you actually tack another I mean the total acquisition cost was 302 tack on there, you know, the 7500 buyers fee on that end. But 302 for a 21 model, 5-year-old 1042, I mean, that's the number that I was seeing back like two years ago on that type of a tractor. So it hasn't it hasn't sunk, it's held." And so I I thought that was interesting.
Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's the I think that's what we're going to see continue to happen. Like it's not a lot of the stuff that we see out in the marketplace right now is going to continue to to track the way it's been tracking and it's going to be um the stuff that's bringing big money right now is the stuff that's in really good condition. It's got freakishly low hours or something crazy like that that's got that's driving that space. What I've found in my career doing this is that once that kind of that good stuff gets kind of wiped off and it becomes fewer and far between to find something like that when those machines do pop up for sale, that's when they really start to pop, right? And you really see more like you're selling just if they're selling for 250 today, they're going to be selling for close to 300 uh in 6 months from now. Um, but again, it's the demand that we see happening for those is not necessarily as a whole. It's just a hey, I want to upgrade my tractor, but I'm looking for something specific and that's I'm going to wait till I find that and when I find it, I'm going to pay for it. And I think that's that's
and one thing that's you're you're right. And one thing that's helped farmers wanting that and because they aren't buying new, so they want that nicest used. The one thing that's helped is on the top end of this K-shaped economy, you got farmers, I'm 60, and you got farmers who are 75, 80, whatever. We're seeing a lot of, you know, true retirement sales. And it's basically it's like old dudes like me and older would maybe choose to keep farming, but you know, maybe just deciding, you know, I think it's time to stop the equity drain. and what they have. It tends to be a lot of well-positioned, really nice used equipment. And I mean, if you're 78 years old and you've had a great farm career, that's why we're seeing a lot of these like that Salem Monday and Big Iron, you see a lot of sales like that with a 14 model, something with low hours or that 12 model 8120 because farmers, I mean, they're smart and they've been reading my column for 35 years and they know a 10 plus year old with low hours, that's what everybody wants. So, if I can get my get my equipment line structured uh so that I have that stuff that when it comes time for me to drop the mic and retire, you're going to get premium prices and that's what a lot of smart farmers do.
Yeah, for sure. Yep. For sure. It's a everchanging marketplace and there are a lot of lot of moving parts here. So, a lot of information to pay attention to. So, great great place to stop. folks want you to come speak at their event or come to their auction. You just go to machinerypete.com and look you up there.
Yeah, drop us a note there. Or hey, come down to Commodity Classic in San Antonio next week and hang out with Casey and I. We'll have a we'll have a lot of fun down there.
Yeah, that'll be a good time. Be a good time. So, well, Greg, appreciate you being on. We'll catch you again next time.
Sounds great. Casey, have a good week.
All right. Stay tuned for more Moving Iron podcast after these messages.
Well, there they are mocking you. See you next year.
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All right, welcome back to Moving Iron Podcasts. Got Sean Hacking on to talk about what's happening in the marketplace. Sean, how you doing today?
I'm doing good. doing real good.
Good deal, man. Sean, it's uh we've seen a little bit of movement in the marketplace back and forth. I know Trump's even been talking back and forth and and you've seen a few things come up there. As you're watching the situation unfold, what's your best synopsis of what you see happen there?
Well, when it comes to grains, obviously the uh president's tweet, you know, that China's relationship, let me put this way, Xi's relationship with Trump has never been better. um he's planning on going to see him in April. Bessent's going to have a lot of preparatory meetings with the higher-ups ahead of that meeting and of course soybeans have caught a bid and generally speaking grains have caught a bid ever since. Um so you would have to believe he's not going to go over to China and not have something to announce. Um and I and I'm sure he he won't be able to keep it to himself. So, I would imagine we're going to get more positive headlines about the wonderful job that he's doing in um normalizing trade with China. So, um this it's it's eerily similar to what happened the first presidency. Um it could be a big buy the rumor, sell the news if he disappoints. It could be it's a signed deal with exact quantities again and oh my gosh it's bigger than we thought and now that we're going to buy corn, they're going to buy wheat, they're going to buy cotton. We don't know other than I think leading up to that meeting um I I think there's there's tailwinds. I think there's there's going to be bid in this market. I think you're going to get short covering by speculators and I think there's going to be some more upside here. And I and if I'm sitting there as a farmer looking at all the unknowns, you know, I I I want to be making sure that I got myself 3/4 cash sold on my old crop corn, soybeans, and wheat uh leading into and maybe the meeting is oh my gosh, this is unbelievable. And we have one final spike after the meeting, but somewhere between now and a day or two after the meeting, I don't want to have a whole lot of old crop grain left around. you want to speculate. Um, I'd speculate more on the new crop than I would on the old crop. You got to pay your bills. You got to make sure you you're a farmer next year. Uh, and with the margins as tight as they are, some of the increase in price we've seen and maybe we'll continue to see, you have to be opportunistic because we simply can't predict these kinds of things very accurately. Um, and they can change on a dime. Trump could wake up and throws a a tantrum and um all bets are off and and you just don't want to be sitting with a bunch of grain old crop grain that you haven't sold, you know.
Yep. Yeah. A lot of moving parts there when those you know we've seen this before a couple times already this year uh these similar kind of uh tweets and statements come out. So, we'll see what happens this one and we'll uh play it by
my my suspicion my suspicion is that there's going to be some more headlines that they're going to buy corn and they're going to buy wheat and they're going to buy pork and c like I think I think you know I think there's going to likelihood be a a a broadening not just soybeans but a broadening to some other a markets and um and and may never actually happen, but I think that that there's going to be some headlines that they're going to do it. This meeting coming up, they're going to talk about it and um and and we might be able to put more premium on things like corn. Uh which, you know, has been dragged up slowly by soybeans, but soybeans have been the one that's had the big move. But I think, you know, maybe like corn and wheat or some other markets like cotton that haven't moved too much, you know, could move a whole lot if we get some additional headlines. Like I said, I have no idea if that's going to happen, but it wouldn't surprise me if we get a broadening of their buying intentions, at least for a little while. So,
all right, let's jump over and talk about the weather. Now, this is this is we talked about this three weeks ago, I think, on the podcast. This last big cold front came through. It's like, hey, we got this cold front and then we got one, maybe two more um looking at March and into the first part of April. How's your, you know, it's warm back up now for most places. I'm in Florida now and it's it's still kind of cold for Florida, right? But it's uh as you're watching this thing kind of develop, what are your thoughts, your
Well, let's back up. Uh first we had like a really really warm mid November. Winter's never going to come, right? Natural gas got crushed and then we had the coldest period from the from the from late November into mid December and 80 to 100 years in many places from center east. Then we had a rec then we had a warmup. Winter's over. It's done. It's over. Natural gas prices got absolutely obliterated. And then we had a center east had some of the coldest temperatures in 100 years from the middle part of January and early part of February. Now we're getting a uh another one of these temporary warmups. Winter's over. It's over. This is the third time
Winters have been over. Third time. And our work says it's not over. We're going to get one more really good solid push of cold from late month into the mid-late March. I think it could easily be a 100-year record cold center-east to kind of finish off the winter. And when it's all said and done, when you remember the majority of the heating degree days doesn't come from the west, it comes from center-east. When you look at them from a heating degree basis, I believe we will classify this winter as a top-five heating degree winter since 1950. And natural gas supplies, which are now below what they were last year, now below the five-year average. Normally in March there's very little drawdown, and in April you're starting to add injection back into storage again. If we're correct about what we're saying, we're going to see an actually fairly significant drawdown in March. And we think April can be on the colder side, which means we probably don't get much injection in April. We think we're going to be starting the injection season in May at very, very low levels compared to what we typically do. Remember, we started well above the five-year average in mid-November, like well above average. So this then sets the bar that if we go into next winter and we're not able to get back to the five-year moving average on supplies, and we have another, you know, let's say top-ten cold winter, and all this AI demand for electrical power starts building and the LNG exports continues to build, you could see yourself, you know, getting yourself into a little bit of a pickle. And so, yeah, of course, they've obliterated the natural gas market yet again because they just are overreacting. But we think in the longer term, beyond short-term volatility, we're setting up for a repricing of natural gas to a higher level. But it ain't easy. The way this market trades, it's, I mean, remember that back in January we doubled the price of natural gas in three trading days to talk about how wild the volatility can be in that market. So anyway, nothing's really changed from our winter. The only thing that we're a little surprised about, we know natural gas historically is volatile, but this has been the most volatile pricing of natural gas during a winter. It's off-the-charts volatility. It's an order of magnitude higher, and natural gas is already a high-volatile market. So I'm not sure why the volatility is as high as it is, Casey, but it's been just way off the charts, and we sort of misjudged that the market would be this volatile even though our weather forecast has been fairly good.
Okay. One thing you talked about early on in the year when you started talking about winter was some delays in planting because of cold, you know, those kind of things were creeping into that time frame. Depending on where you're at, they're planting already, depending on how far south you are. You start looking into mid-March, early April time frame, that's when we really get the full swing of planting season. As you're looking at that time frame, Sean, what are your thoughts and kind of what are you seeing happen during that time?
Well, anytime you have a cool weather pattern, it means if you do plant, your seeds could sit there for a long time, as you know, and not emerge, or if they sit for too long, they don't come out at all. You know, I mean, so, you know, that's the risk, you know, is a farmer just going to, if it's cool and cold and dries, he's just going to take a shot at it and go plant a bunch. So maybe the numbers will look good, but if it doesn't warm up and you don't get that emergence, you could be looking at delayed emergence and poor stands and all those kind of things. The grain markets are very, very unwilling typically to rally prices during the planting season. I mean, we can plant the entire crop in a week or two if we want to. And so, you know, delayed planting, it's very hard to get the market excited. But I do think that if you planted a bunch of corn and we had an extended period of three or four weeks of cool weather that we're just not getting the crop moving along and we're not getting the emergence, I think that would be something that I think could worry the market. But it's going to take a while. I would think more so that what could get the market excited would be, you know, having no snow cover and catching a quick shot frost in the central northern plains, you know, winter wheat belt, that sort of thing. That's kind of what I'd be thinking about in terms of what could move the dial. The other thing that we want to pay attention to is that we're sort of in a transition year. The weak El Nino is leaving and we're moving towards an El Nino by the fourth quarter. So right now I think technically the sea surface temperatures of the central Pacific just this past week have moved out of La Nina territory or now back in neutral negative. But the atmosphere is still acting extremely La Nina-like. Southern Oscillation Index is extremely positive. The global angular momentum is extremely negative. These both are La Nina signals saying that the atmosphere is still acting like a strong La Nina. So there could be a delay between what the sea surface temperatures are doing and when the atmosphere is willing to respond. The reason I'm mentioning this is because if the atmosphere stays La Nina-like, it always means a dry spring for the winter wheat belt, especially the KC winter wheat belt of Kansas, Oklahoma, your state of Nebraska. And so that would be something on top of flash frost risks that you could get. You could also have worries about dry weather exactly when we're coming out of dormancy and exactly when winter wheat is ready to grow at the most rapid pace to put yield on. And so those two factors says to me, if I'm thinking about what might drive the markets this spring for grains, I think winter wheat's the one to watch. If we plant a bunch of seed and the cold weather continues into April and we get delayed maturation of these crops, that could be something that could rally the market late spring. But I think in more like the next 30 to 60 days kind of thing, I'd be watching the winter wheat market, especially KC winter wheat. I think that's the one that really would fit dry weather and frost risks from what I'm looking at.
Right on. Okay. All right, Sean. Good stuff. As usual, folks are going to reach out to you, get more information about what you're doing over Hackett Financial. What's the best way to do that?
Our website is hackettadvisors.com. We also have a LinkedIn page, Twitter page. We just put a couple of things out here the last couple of weeks on some of this weather, on this El Nino kind of talk that we just mentioned, and we also mentioned something about a crack-up boom cycle that we've seen through history. And so those that are interested in these kinds of statistical cycles and correlations that watch your show, you know, might want to tune into those things to get a perspective on where we might be heading with not only agricultural prices but commodities as a whole.
What's a crack-up boom cycle?
A crack-up boom cycle is when you get a combination of... I'll phrase it this way. The rate of change of the world is happening at such a fast pace that...
