Some of it is speculators but some also has to do with increased demand in the ethanol sector, decreased carryover from the pervious year and a crop that was lower than expected. Couple that with drought in Australia hurting the wheat crop which gave us 5 dollar wheat for a time last week (Haven't looked today at what the markets did) and that drives up the price as substitutes start taking place... IF the new GMO cotton seed is figured out with no reduction in crop I would imagine cake would go up too as the feed value of the seed will not be limited to ruminants anymore.
Calf prices are coming down for the most part becasue of feed going up. Corn is actually more than double here this year, last year corn out of the field was 1.60 a bushel, last week someone sold for 3.60 but that was a strange situation that didn't make any sense to me... Do the math on that price increase per bushel of corn and than figure how many bushels of corn a steer eats between 550#'s and market and a good part of your price reduction in calves will be figured in right there... I tend to think it is an over coorection but my opinion means jack and #
[email protected] when it comes to what the feeders are willing to pay...
Believe me, I just got the rude announcement that between increase prices in freight and increased demand for disittlers and Gulten than the prices went up big time since last year.. Makes me happy.. Sure.... Just wonderfully happy :x Wish I had about 1000 acres in corn planted last summer... Could have a lot of money sitting in the bins right now... Of course, with the beating the crop guys took last year around here I was darn happy to not be crop farming that year.