Sat - 1/2/2016 10:30

"we gain a tremendous amount of market knowledge and experience"
My comment, keep an open mind here,,, they WILL/have made mistakes, you WILL/have made mistake. Their not the Holy Grail

"lack aggressiveness and take sale opportunities for granted."
At times you need to be very aggressive, others dragging your feet,,,, when you figure that out let me know***** With this,,, COP - Cost of production at time in marketing MEANS NOTHING.. IMVSO COP is way over rated with any meetings I go. Point in case, if your COP was 4.69 ZCZ15 with a normal basis and they say to make sale above COP your sitting with NO SALES in a falling market and a high CPI Any pricing I state is FUTURES ONLY unless basis is noted.

"a person can use a marketer to add to there team"
"invest in there own skills and do it themselves"
Here again keep an open mind and learn from them, learn from YOUR mistake and THEIRS.

These are 4 points of your post that stand out to me. Will add learn the letters,

F - Jan
G - Feb
H - March
J - April
K - May
M - June
N - July
Q - Aug
U - Sept
V - Oct
X - Nov
Z - Dec

Old boy 48 did it for me like this, so I'm doing it for NAT. This is the first time I've done from memory after I toss my cheat sheet acouple of week back.
I started learn these in early 2012 (Yaaaa Lars AKA 48 thought it was funny too) when I got my APEX marketing program thru ADMIS. I HAD TO know there letters/symbols to program anything. So I copy/paste/printed them, Norweigin laminated it in scotch tape and had it taped to the edge of my computer screen. Knowing the letter/symbols making it much easier to follow posts and follow a lot of market goodies.

Z - Chicago
MWE- MPL/MGEX wheat
KE - Kansas Wheat
E- Softs /Energy's
ZE - Ethanol- still Chicago
6 - currencies except,,,
EDX is the US Dollar Index
Z is also anything to do with T bonds/T notes all the interest rate goodies, Tommy G has got me looking at these too as I've tended to ignore it, this is and will become more important to you on YOUR farm.
Many know this stuff, many do not.
I've done the SCLT - "Short Crop/Long Tail" enough don't think anyone needs a reminder. THIS WAS AND IS HUGE since the 2012 highs on YOUR farm. The IS part,,, "IS" because of the ramp up in world production of everything off the mega high prices we had.

I guess I just have a passion/HO for markets/ing and enjoy it. Helping others to learn and WILL STAY in with the teaching and educator part and NOT a service or a broker deal. Service part would be a cluster mess and even if you set up a LLC or a S-corp there still risk to me and to my Grampa's home quarter. Brokers are a dollar a dozen anyways, good ones are the key***** that are not trying to make major bucks off YOUR hedge's or options trading to manage the risk on YOUR farm.

Sat - 1/2/2016 11:24 Adding some things after reading the post above Maize and I preach "Target Orders", there pretty simple, apply them and KEEPING them in place with the sumers rain rally is the hard part. I see NO reason at this time to have orders in place for 2017 in this falling/down/trending market but that's just me. Kevin way is very in depth and do not do it, more just "wing it" I'm not the spread sheet guy ! ! ! Sorry SWKS I farmer many years when $50-100 profits were way more then a pipe line dream. On MY STO farm (yes I do have one for really) east of Buxton ND half ways between the Red River and I-29. I have made some comments over the years in here and AW to "throw off" my location a tad :o) On MY farm Crop Insurance is one file***** Marketing is ANOTHER***** I could care less what the RMA spring price is when it comes to marketing, it IS NOT and WILL NEVER be in any way shape or form ANY KIND of "A Market Price Floor"********** Back to target order this past summer,,,,, this is where to tough part comes in comes, TUNE OUT much of the info you hear/see/read as to how BULLISH IT WAS. MANY. Much info you here is from someone looking for rating (TV AND RADIO ratings, RATINGS = EQUALS ADVERTISING DOLLARS looking for YOUR business and looking to profit from YOUR marketing. Now this may or may not tick off some/few and not in NAT but I'm usually on someone poop list anyways ! ! ! OK that was a little blunt yes, I do not "beat around the bush" I'm NOT looking for you biz as a broker, I'm NOT looking for your biz as in selling a marketing service*** NOW,,, if you have duck/geese/pigs someplace warm in the winter months, want some personally help or a small little "Risk Management Meeting" I have guns/ammo/car, love a good road trip seeing different country, seeing and learning how other areas do things. BEER, RIBEYE'S crop tour/farm and BS is fun***** Last winter got to see alot of that prime north I-80 stuff, thought it would be flat and really got a surprise with all the terracing in NW/Western Iowa, those "hills" were really fun about 90ish for a flatlander. Sorry Kevin, right now if one is sitting with a bunch of UN-priced grains, COP mean nothing, remember I am different. To the traders in Chicago or wherever,,,,, IT MEANS ABSOLUTE NOTHING***** They could care less if your COP is 1.97 or 4.97 ZCZ,,, THEY DON'T CARE***** SO EVERY marketing meeting I've been to, I hear "known your COP of YOUR farm"...... Traders could care less what we hear. Again sorry for the blunt and do not mean to rude but it is what it is...... What traders/investors in/spec money of, ARE looking at and HAVE BEEN looking at is, increases in world wide stock of grains the last 3 years. This goes double with UN-REAL CHEAP ocean freight and the currencies exchanges.

KevinM - 1/2/2016 15:02

So since my way is too much trouble for you, you are going to "teach your students" not to worry about COP???? Just keep doing whatever you are doing even if you are losing money doing it???

I will agree that unpriced grain now in the bin is water under the bridge but what about knowing your COP so that you can recognize an opportunity for profit/breakeven/minimize loss. Sometimes it is easier to know where price is not likely going than where it is going.

I will also agree that traders don't give a rat's patoot what your individual COP is but they do pay attention to average COP. So if you can be below that average COP you are in a better situation than someone at the upper end. And if you are at the upper end then you had better be actively looking for ways to get to below average.

You advocate target orders but how do you decide where to place them? As Ray says "do you know what you want or is it just more?". If you have a decent handle on where you can make money you can feel more confident in pulling the trigger on a sale. And I thought that is what the OP was asking about??? I think the OP was telling us that "winging it" was not getting him where he wanted/needed to be???

Sat, you enjoy markets/marketing and you most likely spend much of your time reading and thinking about it therefore you may have a better handle on where price may or may not go within a given time period. But I can tell you that most folks that are reading here are not as engaged and need a different method to feel comfortable with/have confidence in a decision to sell their crops. I also think that it depends on size. A smaller farmer may not need a spreadsheet-maybe back of the envelope is good enough. But if a guy is farming several thousand acres it gets harder to keep all of that front and center, so yeah, a spreadsheet helps. And it really doesn't take that much time once you get it built to suit.

Cheers.