The weather and the stock market have both been bouncing around like a yo-yo on a string for the past week, but now it appears that both the weatherman and the stock brokers have made up their minds, sending both into the tank. The mercury hit 15 below zero in Rutland on Monday morning, then topped out at 22 above by Tuesday afternoon before starting a slide into the cellar that is not predicted to stop until it hits bottom at 25 to 30 below sometime this weekend. Well, the weather forecasts aren’t always right, but why is it that they usually miss when they’re predicting sunny and 70, but are rarely wrong when predicting ferocious, frigid and frozen? Ask your stock broker, he’s as likely to have the answer as the weatherman.

Cameron Gulleson, Mark Wyum and Rob Wyum drove down to Texas during the first week of January to discuss contracts for spraying crops in that area with Texas farmers. Cameron and Rob, along with Lance Gulleson and Cody Gulleson, own and operate an agricultural chemical application business, and the boys are looking for a way to keep the equipment rolling year-round. Reports are that the number of acres planted to winter wheat in Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas is way down this year due to increases in the acreage going into the production of corn, soybeans and milo. King Cotton in Texas has suffered the same fate as King Wheat in North Dakota. They have both been deposed in favor of a new regime. As a result, there is now a shortage of wheat and the price has soared to stratospheric levels for winter wheat, spring wheat and durum. The price could just as well be $100.00 per bushel, though, because no one has any to sell right now. There is one thing, though, that the American farmer can do better than produce, and that’s overproduce, so just give him a few years with some timely rains and it won’t be long until crop prices are back in the tank with the weather and the stock market, too.

Continue reading “The Rooster Crows – January 19, 2008” →