I have a thought to throw out. I'm not highly educated nor have any credentials, so this is definitely not marketing advice.

Both the bulls and the bears have made good cases for their beliefs. In the extreme, should every one of their claimed possibilities form the "perfect storm" and come to fruition, they could be right. They have make their cases well.

I try to start out neutral (as we all would claim we do - then assemble all the "facts" logically). The futures market takes into account both sides of the claims and the market in aggregate evaluates the probabilities and comes up with a futures price that reflects all the possibilities and probabilities. So for my base scenario, I always try to assume the market in aggregate has better info than I do or even could have. So the futures price probably reflects the probabilities and possibilities of the market better than I could alone.

Does this mean the futures price is right? Of course not. Because the future can not be predicted. It does not know if we are going to have a widespread drought. Nor does it know if the Chinese will find purchasing power and want to improve their diet in a major way. Nor a thousand other things that can possibly come about in the future but are not predictable. Probabilities can be assigned to such future events, but there is no way of knowing for sure if they will play out.

Then on this information of assuming the market is logically most likely smarter than I, a more bullish or bearish case is considered. Most of the time, I figure the market is smarter than me. Once in a while some evidence is compelling enough to make me become more bullish or bearish (likely an illogical assumption, but hey, we are humans and we rely much more on "feelings" than real logic - such is our nature).

Then I add in the element that I just have to "fiddle" with things so don't feel like I'm not doing anything (humans value busyness - makes us feel important), and come up with a "plan" that is likely liable to change often but if I am lucky and follow my own advice does not vary too much from the original.

But my base scenario is always the assumption that the market place in aggregate is likely smarter than me alone.

For what it is worth. My opinion. Not advice.

John