 I'd like to welcome everyone to this month's edition of NDSU Extension Agri-Business's Agricultural Market Situation Outlook webinar. As always, we have a number of specialists from NDSU Extension. We're gonna speak on different parts of the ag economy. We're happy to answer questions. We save those until the end. You may use either the Q&A tool or the chat tool, but we'll get to them with that. I think I'll just go ahead and turn it right over to Brian Parmin. All right, so as we're closing out, this is our last outlook situation and outlook for 2023. And so what I thought I'd do is a little bit of a year in review on some production cost stuff, just more big picture, nothing super detailed going on here. And then a little bit of an outlook as we transition into next year, 2024. So like I said, I'm gonna use some indices and these reports came out just at the end of last month from USDA. And so here are our crop farms received and paid indexes and all this is when I'm talking about these indexes just an aside on how they work. They take all of the production cost items, for instance, they throw them into a basket and whatever that costs, in this case, 2011, whatever that total cost is, is 100. And then so if costs go up 10% for that whole bucket of costs, it would be 210. So in this case, at 2011 was 100. 2022 was about 140. So in other words, production costs were 40% higher across the board in 2022 than they were in 2011. And we hit that high right as we began as we went through 2022 and just into 2023. And last spring, when I was given these production costs kind of forecast, I said, the spring production costs were gonna be a bit lower and they were, and a lot of that came from fertilizer costs coming down some and they were last spring. And as we're moving into 2024, we can see those production cost items have come down a little bit more as well. So for on the crop production side, the index falling from about, yeah, about 141 down to about 135. So off a little bit from last year. At the same time, the price has received for our products, whatever crop it happens to be, those are off from the highs that we're seeing most recently in that 2022, 2023 period. And then the middle of last year a little bit. In fact, that index has come down from almost 130 down to just over 100. And so we're kind of looking at similar prices to what we're looking at actually in 2011, slightly higher. The livestock side, kind of the same thing. Price has received really peaked last year. Now this is all livestock. This is not just cattle. So this is gonna include swine, poultry, lambs, whatever, the whole gamut. And we see that those prices paid have gone up pretty dramatically since 2020 for our livestock producers. So in other words, those production cost items going up pretty dramatically, whereas prices paid have come down some, prices paid have gone up quite a bit and the price received have come down some. But we'll talk about general cattle in a second. Now, if we look at chemicals, so this is just specifically chemicals instead of all production cost items. This is really where, from that index that I showed where a lot of that's coming from. And peak, for instance, chemical prices. So those are your herbicides, pesticides, fungicides are all lumped into that chemical category. There, fertilizers its own and fuels its own. That peaking, again, spring of 22 and our chemical prices have come down from about 170 down to 130. So about 30% compared. So a pretty substantial drop there in terms of chemical prices as we're looking into 2024 that we would expect to pay. Same thing with fertilizers. Again, peaking there in that spring of 2022, kind of holding. You see it swings up there as we went into 23 and then our fertilizer prices, again, have come down quite a bit. And so far from everything I've gathered, we're probably looking at just maybe a slight seasonal increase in fertilizer costs this spring, but not a big spike of any kind. It's gonna be that typical seasonal increase that you see in Urea and Starter and those kind of things. And then fuels off the highs. They increased, the fuel costs did increase. A lot of this is diesel though. Diesel prices were fairly, remained fairly sticky there through 2023 and has come off. So on the chemicals side, whether it's fertilizers, herbicides, pesticides and fuels, well off the peak from a couple of years ago or even a year ago and looking kind of like we're moving sideways. So essentially where they are now, kind of where we expect they're gonna be next spring. Machinery costs, those have essentially leveled out. Peaked there in 22 and then reached that peak there again in 23 and then just kind of moving sideways on machinery and then supplies and repairs trended up with the overall cost of machinery, but those again are moving sideways. So as I've said in a lot of the talks I've given on machinery costs, we expect that you'll see an increase in the cost, but it'll be that typical one to 2% increase that you see most years, not the big 15 and 20% increases we saw a few years back. And then on the used equipment side, some weakness this fall, as soon as a lot of the sales are logged and we get that data tabulated, we can see exactly where used equipment stands compared to a year ago, but it was looking like those used equipment prices were coming down, those used equipment values coming down during the fall. Interest rates, this came out for the third quarter of this most recent year, 2023, from the Minnesota Minneapolis Federal Reserve, which is our district, okay? And so interest rates are down a little bit from what it's showing here, okay? So this came out in the third quarter, we're in the fourth quarter now and the end of December will be the end, the conclusion of the fourth quarter, but rates on things like operating loans had gone up to about almost 9%, 8.8, 8.7 on variable rates, machinery loans well above 8% and then real estate just below 8% across the district and the district includes North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana and Minnesota. And again, as I said, those rates have come down since then, they kind of spiked there in October. And the other thing that's happened, the Fed came out this week and said that they think that they're gonna basically pause the rate hikes for a while and you're reading a lot of things in the Fed's comments, basically you're reading comments on the Fed's comments. And a lot of times I caution folks that some in the media and the talking heads read into the comments what they wanna hear. So essentially they said they're gonna reevaluate where rates are as more data comes in that it may be the end of increasing rates but they also left open the possibility if things swing the other way, they could increase them again. Now then some came out and said, oh, it's the end of rate hikes and the Fed could be lowering rates as soon as March. Well, they didn't say any of that actually really. Like I said, it was gonna be data driven that there may be, and they said what they always say for the most part. It's just sometimes things are interpreted differently than they're intended, I would say. All right, then we looked at commodity prices, year in review kind of deal. And I just picked, and this came from the same USDA report. We've got wheat prices, they spiked there in 22 and have been pretty much a March downward. And this is all wheat in the US down to an average of seven bucks a bushel. But we look at where we were to start 2023 and substantially higher. And then we've got soybeans here just underneath it. Those have held up a lot better than wheat. And corn for the most part with corn prices, now coming down toward the end of the year at well below $5. And this is futures, not cash. We know that cash is considerably lower. And then when we look at the livestock prices and what are year in review here, this is the one where cattle and calf prices have really stayed high. They really shot up in 2023 and Tim's gonna talk way more about that. But that's one of the things that's been driving the livestock as far as the prices received on that. And then if we look at what crops, what they've actually done, this is the expected receipts for 2023 versus 2022 when the year finally settles out. Corn receipts down a bit, same with soybeans, the only thing up is like through the wheat down slightly, modestly down in 23 over 22 for that. And then cattle and calves being up, but most of the rest of the livestock sector, the expectation is that it'll be reduced, that dairy is gonna be down, cash receipts in 2023 will be down for dairy, for broilers, poultry, chickens, hogs, as well as eggs, all right? And I say all that to look at this and this is what our projection is the most recent which ended November 30th, so just a few weeks ago. This is what it looks like for net farm incomes out of 2023 for those who are kind of gonna be evaluating closing out the end of the year. And it's gonna be considerably lower than the 2022 year, when it was well over net cash income, well over 200 billion and net farm incomes around 190 down to 157 and 151. And the big reason for that is production costs mostly holding constant with the exception of chemicals coming down considerably, which does make a big impact, but yeah, equipment, seed, machinery and repairs, that kind of stuff going up, livestock, the cost of life breeding and replacements going up, even though receipts do at the same time. So it's still projecting 2023 to be an above average year, comfortably above average with these lines that you look at in this chart and this is by the USDA, comfortably above average in terms of net farm incomes when we close out this last year, but way off the record of 2022. I mean, in fact, if you kind of wanna draw a comparison, the expectation is that 2023 will look a lot like 2021. That's kind of, which was again, also above average. So it's not a, this isn't a doom and gloom or anything like that, or it's just stating a fact that unless we set a new record, it had nowhere to go but down, right? But then we look at what FAPRI put out for 2024 and I'll kind of point to this. So FAPRI put out 2023s and this came out in September and theirs is very close to what the USDA just put out a couple of weeks ago. They've got it closer to 150 billion. The USDA has it at about 151 for net farm income. So right there pretty close, but you look at 2024, the expectation is that it's going to be lower even than this last year, not way lower, but probably closer to that 145, 140 billion if you're looking at the chart and the data for it, which would put it more in line with the average, more down here. And the big reason, yes, production costs have come down, but not to the five-year average, but much lower than the last couple of years. And then the fact that if we go back and look at commodity prices and where they are compared to those record years, quite a bit lower on our major crops, corn, soybeans, and cattle on the other hand have been in good shape. That's sort of the gist of it that basically as we're transitioning into spring and looking at renewing operating loans and all this other stuff, that right now the forecasts, assuming nothing changes, like we have average weather and average trade and average everything else, this is what the expectation is. Of course we know that that doesn't mean we'll have average anything that drought and all kinds of stuff, late planting, whatever else can impact that dramatically, but that's essentially where we sit. So right now the future doesn't look gloomy, but we're probably not going to see these records broken in the next year or in any danger of being broken in the next year. It's probably gonna look a lot more like this last year if not slightly lower. So that's kind of the year in review and what we're looking at. Again, production costs probably lower next year in fuels, chemicals and fertilizers, but not quite to that long run average and Tim and Tim are gonna talk a lot more about livestock and crop prices, so I'm not gonna go into that, but I just want to show where they were and why net incomes were where they were and kind of where they are now compared to costs. So with that, I turn it over to Dr. Olson and I hope everyone has a good holiday and I guess I'll probably see you next year unless there's some questions at the end, so thank you. Well, good afternoon everybody. Thank you for joining us today. My name is Frayn Olson. I'm a crop economist and marketing specialist with NDSU Extension. Here's my contact information. So if you do think of something that you want to visit about later, don't hesitate to reach out and contact me. We will have some time at the end for some question and answer if there is something urgent or immediate. So I wanna go through kind of key market issues. We're gonna talk a little bit about the USDA WASDE report, the World Agricultural Supply Demand Estimates that came out last week, last Friday. Basically, it was neutral for soybeans, corn and wheat. I mean, there really wasn't a lot of new information. I'll go through kind of the small shifts and adjustments they made. So we weren't expecting that to be a big market moving report and it wasn't. Right now, the key focus, there's a couple of things that the market is really focusing on. One of them is obviously the weather and the crop conditions coming out of Brazil and Argentina. And they are being watched very closely. So my story is we're in a weather market. It just happens to be a South American weather market. And I'm gonna go through later on today to give you an update on where kind of current crop conditions, some of the expectations for production, not only the USDA had, but also some of the private folks. The other thing that I do wanna follow up on and just remind everybody, during this holiday season, as we get closer into Christmas and in particular between Christmas and New Year's, the markets are open, but the trading volumes are really low. We tend to have very low trading volumes. It becomes a thinner market. Now, typically, if there's a nice quiet holiday season, that means that there'll likely be very little price movements. Prices will be relatively stable over the holidays. However, if there is some kind of shock or if there's something big that happens over this timeframe, because the trading volume was very thin, we can have relatively large shifts just because there aren't a lot of buyers and not a lot of sellers. And so to get market moves if there's some kind of big shock event is not unprecedented. Now, that's usually the anomaly. That's not the norm. The normal conditions is to have limited price movement in a very quiet marketplace. So that's kind of going into the holiday season. That's what we expect to see. Before I jump into the USDA numbers, I did wanna give you a brief kind of review of somehow the private forecasters are looking at South American corn and soybean production. One of the folks that's followed very closely is Michael Cornier. He's headquartered in Brazil. He has a soybean and corn advisor. Is the name of his company. He provides pretty regular updates on soybean and corn condition ratings as well as his forecast for production. Again, he's followed relatively closely by a lot of the traders and analysts. So I thought I'd bring him up and mention it. So if we look at soybean production for soybeans, especially in Brazil, he's on the low end of the range. He's actually one of those forecasters coming out and saying, given what we have seen so far, given the current crop conditions, he's looking at a slightly smaller crop than last year and down pretty significantly from what the original expectations are original numbers. So just for reference point, when a lot of the private forecasters were looking at planted acreage and before all the seeding began in particular in Brazil, a lot of, I think the average trade estimate was like 163 million metric ton, 163. Well, corn year is down to 157. In Argentina, it's at 50. That's actually a little bit of a pretty substantial increase from last year, but recognized last year was a pretty severe drought. In fact, the third year of drought conditions in Argentina. On the corn side, again, 118 million metric tons, which is kind of a low end of the industry range right now. The big wild card is, of course, with the second crop or that safrina crop corn. We've talked about that in the past. That's the larger of the corn acreage and corn production. We'll have to wait to see a little bit longer into the season before we get a better read on that. But given current expectations, kind of what we see, coordinates coming out with about 118 million metric ton. Again, for Argentina, an increase from last year at 52 million metric ton. So Conab, which is kind of the Brazilian version of USDA, they're a little bit closer to the midpoint of what the average trade estimates are. About 160 million metric ton for Brazil, about 118 million metric ton for Brazilian corn. And then Agro Rural, which is again a Brazilian consulting company similar to what corn year does, they've come out at about 159 million metric ton for Brazilian soybeans. I haven't seen a recent updated report on what they're looking at for Brazilian corn. So if we shipped into what is USDA looking at? So what did USDA say relative to what some of the private analysts are saying? So again, once again, what I try and do is the top row in this table is the average trade estimate. So before the report is released, some of the major news agencies like Reuters does a survey of private analysts and say, look, what do you expect the numbers to be coming out of this USDA report? And so they report none on the average of all those companies between 20 and 25 companies that report their formal estimates, but they also give the range, kind of what's the high and the low end of that range. And towards the bottom highlighted in black, I have the numbers from last month's report from the November WASDE report. And then of course, in the very bottom highlighted in red is the number that we actually got. So I usually present and remind everyone that for market movements, I mean, if we're looking at some kind of surprise numbers that come out of the USDA reports, we usually need to compare the blue line on top with a red line on the bottom because this is what the trade is expecting to see. This is the number that they had been trading on is what they think is gonna show up. And if that number is substantially different from what the red number is on the very bottom, which is actually reported, then all of a sudden we have this adjustment in expectations. So again, looking at not only the domestic numbers, which I'll get to in a minute, but also the international numbers, the USDA forecast came in very, very close to what current trade estimates are. So if you go across the blue line and the red line, you're gonna see there aren't much difference, pretty minimal difference. The biggest one probably being the Brazilian corn. Again, percentage-wise, that's a relatively small amount. So I would say it's still well within the trading range. All right, so when we get to the domestic numbers, so now we're looking at the ending stocks, how much grain do we expect to have in the bin just before harvest of next year? Again, we're comparing the blue line on top with the red line on the bottom. Very minor adjustments to the information we got in November. In fact, there was really only two adjustments in wheat. There was about a 25 million bushel increase in exports, which then took our ending stocks down. As well as in corn, we had a 25 million bushel increase in forecasted exports for corn, which again, then reduced our ending stocks by the equivalent amount. So no adjustments on the production side, only minor tweaks on the consumption side. The soybean numbers were identical to what we saw back in November. Now, the next report coming out in January is actually gonna be one that will have some market movements or release the potential for market movements. We're gonna get a little bit more weather information out of South America. So we'll start to see what that looks like, but also we're gonna get the final official ending numbers for US corn and soybean production. Okay, so we're gonna lock in the final numbers for planted acreage, harvested acreage, as well as yield per acre. And there have been some minor adjustments being made as we get information from FSA, Farm Service Agency on prevent plant acres. And we're also getting some updated of the ability to compare the survey numbers coming out of NASS, which typically shows up in this WASDE report with the official reporting that farmers certified for crop insurance as well as their FSA numbers. So again, in January, this January report will be a bit more of a larger, bigger deal. So if we see some adjustments, especially on the production side, the last chance to be able to do that will be in the January report. So shifting into where are we with current weather, crop conditions, et cetera. I'm gonna start with Brazilian soybeans and then move into Argentine soybeans. Not gonna be able to touch on corn today because of the time constraints, but the corn story will be similar. And I'll comment on that just briefly. So for soybeans, just to remind everybody where are soybeans grown in Brazil? Again, the darker the green, the more bushels or tons are produced within the respective states. I do wanna just point out and remind everybody, if we look at the too big in the North, the two big growing regions, Mato Grosso and Goyos, when you add those two together, about 36%, you know, typical year, 36% of the production is up in the North. And Mato Grosso is just because of the sheer size of the area, one of those regions we spend a lot of time talking about. But I do also wanna point out that when you get into the Southern part of Brazil, you get Paraná as well as a Rio Grande do Sul. Those two regions, when you add those up, that's about 30%. So the Southern part of Brazil, even though it's not as densely heavy with soybean production, still produces a lot of soybeans from a volume standpoint. So we are always trying to balance what's going on in kind of the Northern part of Brazil versus the Southern part of Brazil, because their weather conditions tend to be somewhat different. Last year, the Northern part of Brazil had very, very almost ideal growing conditions, really good rainfall, they got timely rains. Wasn't too wet, but wet enough. But it was the South, or Southern growing regions that really suffered. So last year, the yields in the North offset were higher and large enough to be able to offset some of the losses we saw in the South. Well, now this year, the opposite is happening. So when we look at, now this is an estimate of drought severity. So this would be similar to our Drought Monitor Index that we have here in the US. This is from USDA Crop Explorer. It's a joint venture between the people at NASA that collect all of the satellite imagery as well as some of the data analytics that's going on within USDA. So this is an estimate of the drought severity. So it'd be similar to, again, our US Drought Index. So notice, again, in that Northern growing region, especially Mato Grosso, and you get in the border in Eastern Mato Grosso and Western Goyos, this is a big, big growing region with a lot of soybeans in it. So there are some drier conditions showing up in the North, and the current forecast for weather is to have very hot and dry conditions continue, at least for the next week. So, again, we'll be watching that pretty closely. However, in the South, notice that there has been wet to some areas of exceptional wetness. A lot of rain has been reappearing. Some of that is soaking into the ground and obviously recharging some of the lower soil profile from the dry conditions they had last year. But it's also setting up for some, the potential for some pretty good yields as we get into the middle of the growing season. So once again, we have this dichotomy where there's difference between what's happening in the North versus what's happening in the South. It's just this year it happens to be flipped. So we look at the crop condition. So this would be NDVI. This is the vegetative health. So we're using satellite imagery. They're trying to take images and say, well, how green is this crop? How dark green or light green is this crop? And this is a map where you're comparing the greenest of the crop during this time period, this week, basically in the first week in December. You're looking at so how green is the crop today relative to what we would normally see this time in history? So we're looking at the same week in time but we're comparing this week to what we would normally see. So obviously white means that it's neutral. We're seeing what we normally see at this time. If you're looking at green, it's a little bit healthier or looking more robust, then we would see normally at this time of year. But then of course, if you get into those browns or yellows, those would be, or even reds, those would be the areas where there's some of that crop condition that's below average or some of the crop health is suffering. And again, you can see on that border between Montegrosso and Goyos, this pocket up here, there's got, there's some problems or some issues starting to show up. Now, one more comment, just to put this in context for everybody, this is the vegetative health for crops. So they screened out some of the forest area, some of the pasture land area, but it includes all crops. This is not just soybeans, it's not just corn, it's not just cotton, it's all crops that are growing within the area. So we do see some areas of problems and trouble starting to show up, but it's still relatively early within the growing season. So these are the things we're monitoring as we move forward. Shifting really quickly to Argentina. Again, the Argentina growing region for both corn and soybean is very tight, very compact. Cordoba and Buenos Aires are those two regions where, as well as Santa Fe, that's really the kind of that core growing region. So as we go to the maps, just recognize that here's this little bump in Argentina and there's Uruguay right here, there's a major, the Paraná River runs up through the middle of Cordoba, that region is the area we're gonna be looking at and focusing on the most. So here's that little bump, here's Uruguay and here's the rivers that we were talking about. So when you look at this core growing region from a soil, some drought severity condition rating, there's still some dry areas and some pockets in that Cordoba area. However, recognize that this region has come out of three years of severe drought. So because they has been so dry for so long, it's gonna take a while to recharge that soil layer, that soil moisture layer. Surface moisture is looking better than it has in quite a while, but there's still some subsoil issues that are going on and that's what's showing up in this drought monitor map. But also recognize that it has been pretty good recharge in some of the areas in the kind of the eastern, southeastern growing regions in Argentina. When we look at crop condition ratings, again, this would match and actually link up pretty closely with what we just saw. So also recognize that in Argentina, the corn and soybean planting is still continuing. So they're a little bit behind planting progress that we normally see in Brazil. And so they're still kind of in the early stages of their planting season right now. So the vegetative health index isn't gonna be quite as representative on what yields and yield potential might be, but it does give us a general indication of what the crop condition is at. So these are the core things we're watching right now. Export pace that we have had some pretty good exports in the corn side. We're still a bit behind on the soybean side. Those will be watched really closely as we move into December and the first part of January, but also these weather conditions coming out of Brazil and Argentina, because those are major competitors for the US both in corn as well as soybeans. So with that, I will stop sharing. Let me get to my right spot here. See if I can stop sharing for a moment. There we go. And I will hand things over to Tim Petrie. Thank you. Good afternoon, everybody. Tim Petrie with you, Extension Livestock Marketing Economist. I'm kind of glad that that Brian talked about some of those things he did because we're just gonna reiterate them here and mainly talk about cattle. But last time I did tell you that we were going to hold a webinar, a backgrounding webinar, and we did hold that on November 28th, as you can see there and maybe some of you joined us. And if that, if you did, that's fine. If you did not get a chance to join us, it was recorded. And at the bottom, actually if you just Google NDSU backgrounding or livestock beef, it'll come up and there's our five presentations that we did including Brian that was just on. He did a number of budgets. And on that same website, you can see the master budget that we use that you can use if you're a lender and have a cattle person coming in to talk about backgrounding, it's there for cattle producers and so on. But I did a market outlook and Brian talked a lot of different budgets with both steers and heifers and slow rate again and so on. And Carl Hoppe showed a lot of different rations. Very important if you're backgrounding cattle or feeding cattle is that there has been a big change in the implant rule, effective mid-year this year in July. So I don't have time to get into that, but certainly something very much of value in implant use and then followed up with Jerry Stuck doing a calf health. So help yourself to that if you would like to. So just gonna start out with the calf market here. And again, I think most of you have been on this before and know the color code, but the green is 2020 and then we just come on up to the purple 2021, the blue 2022 and then the red is this year. And so with our cow herd going down cyclically the last four years, our prices have went up cyclically. And this year, again, the big things that affect calf prices are well, fed cattle prices, the supply of calves, and then corn prices. And so our calf crop is a four straight year going down that's supportive to prices. And then corn falling as Brian showed on his chart, corn going down about $2 this year has been supportive to calf prices too because of that old adage change, corn 10 cents change, fall calf prices in the opposite direction. So because of the low supplies, corn going down actually we'll see fed cattle in a minute being record high. We also have had record high calf prices throughout the year. And usually they do peak out in the summer there, July and August and so on and back off seasonally, which they've reacted very normal this year and have came down. Sometimes you see actually has happened in the last three years as we do see after that low in October and into the first of November. Sometimes we do see a spike there that we have not seen that spike this year and again some reasons for that and more on that a little bit later as well. But basically some of the things up here, corn prices again have been supportive. So that's one of the reasons why prices as high as are. Sometimes we have very good winter wheat grazing and in the South that would be in Texas and Oklahoma and that sparks the calf market because they buy lightweight calves and you know a very cheap way to put on gain on calves. This year we haven't seen the spark up here in the calf market like sometimes we do because of drought down there, about 40% of the winter wheat crop is in drought in Texas it's really hurting. In Oklahoma they've had rains and they have some winter wheat there and I just talked to my counterpart down there and you know there's some cattle going out and winter wheat more cows than normal this year because they wanna maintain their cow herd with these high prices and heifers and not as many calves but their calf market, the lighter weight calf market has sparked a little bit better than up here and another thing is up here when the corn belt cattle buyers come into the market, they don't come into the market until they get the corn that's harvested in Iowa, Southern Minnesota, Southern South Dakota and so on Nebraska when they come into the market that does give us a lift sometimes and it has it's just not showing up on our price up there because of other factors affecting the market and I'll get that to the minute but basically there you know we have much better calf prices this year and even into next year we're gonna have a lower calf crop next year so again it all depends on corn and what fed cattle doing and so on but at least from a supply standpoint we're even gonna have fewer next year so move along to the heavier weight yearling prices there and a similar story just cyclically higher higher this year for those same reasons we have backed off and cash prices sit September and that's usually the case and again now I brought another slide to show you the big story obviously that's in the market now is how high the futures were the gold futures, the gold bars there are the futures today that they've closed and are actually now below what the prices have been this year so that would say you know cyclically are we going lower and you know we can do better than that and actually have better prices than the futures are indicated but they're just kinda in the doldrums now and a lot of things affecting that and you know just going back to September 15th those well or this is the fed cattle excuse me I said this is the fed cattle but again a very strong short supply and so on the one red square are we in the right hand side of your chart is the last futures we have for 2023 is the December futures and so that closed today about one I guess one 6750 or so and you know in the fed cattle market has been off a little bit here lately the story again like I started off trying to say is that those you know on September 15th the futures were quite a bit higher 20, $25 to $28 in there higher than they are now and so the big question is why did we have that decline in futures and we're gonna just talk about that in a minute so just hang on and bear with me now we go to the heavy weight yearling prices and again the same thing looking at the fed cattle chart and the calf chart there's cyclically higher as well again like fed cattle back on September 15th the futures were quite a bit higher you know $45 higher to so on and kind of across the board there the gold bars again are the futures for next year's futures 2024 futures that at one time were quite a bit higher indicating cyclically higher prices now they're about the same as they were as the actual prices were this year but again they had a kind of a big downtrend in futures prices there and so more on that in a minute notice you know there's September high on the cash market the cash market has declined some since September and which is a normal seasonal pattern they go down below and maybe talk more I think I put this chart back in here with not those red futures where they were in September 15th but anyway that's a normal seasonal current you see the last three years September high is there and they do go down so not necessarily any surprise on the cash market there but the futures market decline is something that we're gonna talk about now so the big question is why did the futures market decline after September 15th both in the Fed cattle and the live cattle and again one of the things that affect these 750 pound calves are the price of fed cattle the futures price of fed cattle in that month when these calves are going to a feedlot would finish and that going down alone would cause some lower prices here so let's go to this slide a very busy slide and I just wanna make some comments before I get into this and I know I have to move along here in terms of time but there isn't just one reason why futures prices went down there's probably 20 to 25 reasons and I don't have time to go through every one of those and they each deserve a chart but I brought some along here just to show you I wanna emphasize that no one is to blame for the market going down as no one was to blame for the market going up they're both due to very fundamental supply and demand fundamentals the problem is we can do a very good job of explaining why the market went up and why the market went down because hindsight is 2020 people are saying now why didn't someone warn us that the market was gonna go down like it did and the answer to that is no one knew that all these 25, 30 factors would come together at the same time we knew they could but we just the stars didn't line up so let's just start with the DSLIVE cattle chart on the upper left hand corner and then in green is the cash market and you see the black there is the futures and they went up all throughout the year from January on up to September 15th for again a lot of good fundamental reasons lower cows and the demand for beef was good and so on and so they finally did peak out there on September 15th the speculators and the funds and so on they like to be in something that's going up and this was one of the only games in town the stock market was low interest on money was low corn as we talked about before was going down and but cattle were going up the fundamentals were going up so a lot of good speculative activity there and so then we get them up to September 15th and you see the futures were above the cash market there the futures were up there at these futures were up at 192 but the cash market as high as it got was 184 so there was a big difference there and again they have to come together when the market gets to maturity so then the futures started coming down to get back down to the cash market the cash market is everyday supply and demand fundamentals where the market should be and the futures market is trying to figure out and again there was all that optimism in the market so then there was some selling in the futures market and so on or some interest in getting those close together so they did come down together by October 15th right where they should be the cash and futures market and then also I should add there were a number of better opportunities coming along for people to put their money in rather than in cattle futures the stock market was going up in fact today the stock market reached yesterday and it is at record high levels today again like I said at the beginning of the year interest was low and now you can get 5% to 6% on a six month CD so they're all turning this for investments another reason why some of the speculators bailed out of the money but anyway they got together then on October 15th a cattle on for you see in the purple era cattle on feed report came out and so you go to the right hand side there the cattle on feed report showed more cattle than even a year ago and that got some people all excited and saying oh USDA missed it now we got way more cattle than USDA said and you know all this and that was not the case at all a very good reason why we have more cattle had more cattle on feed then and we do now and that's because of the chart below that we've got a record number of heifers on feed and the reason for that is because the drought in the Southern Plains last year you know 76% of our cow herd was in drought and still 40% and down South is dry and getting dark and so on so heifers that originally would have went into the beef cow herd and been bred were put into feed lots and so on and so that raised the number of cattle on feed and what that is is near term bearish because we've got more cattle on feed which would be more beef production but on the other hand it's longer term bullish because we're gonna have a smaller cow herd again because you know all these heifers on feed so kind of all those things came together but again you know there was no irrational going on there go down to the bottom left hand side you know on September the week ending in September 16th the futures of September 15th was on a Friday feed lots on the top there were making a very good money because the market had went up so basically they were getting 184 for fed cattle and they had paid just a little bit not hardly any more than that for the cattle going in so they were making good money and then just go down to the bottom there where we see calculated break-even price for cattle being placed on September 15th their break-even price for this would be for the fed cattle going out was 185 but again the April futures of when those cattle would be sold were up very close to $200 and so they could pay that for feeder cattle and they could hedge and lock in a profit so again nothing goofy going on there but again by the time we get down to October more cattle on feed Brian mentioned the alternative meats hog prices are lower turkey prices are lower chicken prices are lower so meat is cheaper beef is very expensive so that affected someone the consumer demand a high credit card death getting debt getting into the holidays you know other things for people to buy and so on is one of the reasons why fed cattle went down and then we go to the feeder cattle side kind of the same way we kind of mentioned those before but there's the November feeder cattle futures that already closed but I like to bring that November chart in and this is versus the CME cash settlement price they have to be the same when the market closes and I bring that in to show you they were the same that green line is the cash settlement price which is the cash market of all the cattle or their USDA market reporters all the seven to eight, 99 weights and you know including three in North Dakota here in Napoleon, Kiss and Mad Ann and so on they came together but again go back to September 15th they were $18 or so higher rate you know and then they came down to the cash market like they said so again I already mentioned this but going over on the right hand side the cash market did feeder cattle cash market did go down like it has done the last three years in fact on the bottom is the seasonal price pattern for feeder steers and that's a 10 year seasonal price pattern and so on the left hand side is the index so all we do is add up the average prices for every month and divide by 10 there in this case a 10 year moving average and so we see what times of the year they're higher and what times of the year they're lower on the average and so you see that September high occurring and they go down and you know when the market going down like it did I guess is another example of why price risk management is something we need to look at and again when prices are record high volatility is high and so we're kind of seeing all those things come to fruition come over to the bottom left hand side you see here's feeder cattle 78 weight feeder cattle versus fed cattle prices there on September 15th were $70 higher than fed cattle which usually they're down about 40 or so and so you know kind of reality has set back in there so a lot of other reasons but again we can explain things and hindsight very well it's just that looking ahead you know what's going to happen what's corn prices going to do and consumer demand and all those are all question marks we have but again just another reason why even though we're at record high price levels I think we should consider price risk management so just a couple of things here here's the market report from North Dakota for last week and these are some of the things we talked about in in background but I want to kind of just concentrate in the middle there you know on my charts I use the average price which is circled there for last week for 550 weight steers was 269.55 but look at that wide range and prices there a $40 range and prices for the same weight and grade of calves at the same market and so those corn belt cattle feeders that like to come in here they like to buy those top really really good calves and so you know those are the ones at 289 on the other hand since the market is kind of finicky now and there's a lot of unknowns and the markets went down we're seeing more discounts for the cattle being a little bit off that would might be the smaller weights or wouldn't have shots or weaned and so on so you know that that's what's causing that big range in prices there again we've talked about the discount and heifers up there before and you know $30 for 500 pound heifers but you get down to get them up to about 900 pounds and they're the same price so Brian's budget certainly showed that there's you know heifers and we are gonna keep a lot of heifers in North Dakota and you know particularly in West River weather was better this year they're likely you know if it continues raining down south we don't know that there is gonna be a good demand even for replacement heifers so a lot of things going on in the market again very volatile another reason why we should consider price risk management and with that just wish you all happy holidays and I'll stop sharing here and turn it over to Ron. Yeah I'm just gonna talk a little bit about into the year farm income tax planning some of this is kind of a refresher but it's always good to be refreshed once in a while we only got two weeks till the end of the year and that's when farmers they have time now to work on their books and as of course we know the March 1st is the filing date but I would encourage people to make a deposit by January 15th and pay then you can pay with everybody else on April 15th if you can come up with how much you would probably be for a deposit actually it's January 16th this year because of a holiday and but it's pretty easy if you paid in what you paid last year you're okay for a penalty or two thirds of your liability that you owe and all this can be done on form 2210 F so something to consider because it's March 1st comes pretty quick for when you're trying to get all your numbers together of course we know about the 179 deduction where you can buy a tractor right on the last day of the year and deduct it and there's also the 100% bonus but that's phased down so for this year it's not 100% bonus it's only 80% bonus okay and it will go down to 60% the next tax year I always like to talk about Schedule J this is important a lot of farmers miss this if you've got a high income what you do on Schedule J you take that income and divide it equally by three and the easiest way to explain that is that you have a low bracket down in the bottom and the next bracket up you fill up your lower tax brackets and you can save quite a bit of taxes by doing an income average it's just particular for farmers self-employment tax went up to 160,200 went up quite a bit from 147 the previous year so if you've got a wage job plus your farm income and it gets over 160 then you've maxed out but you'd still need to pay the Medicare tax on all of that income above 160 the estates amounts went up to 13.44 million this year and actually there's not that many people that have that much big of an estate but if you do it's pretty good social security payments for 2024 are scheduled to go up about 3% where last year they went up about 8% I believe when you report your crop insurance proceeds if you got some crop insurance proceeds you can defer them till the next year if you so desire but technically you cannot defer if you collect it on a revenue policy it's only the physical loss that you can defer and certain insurance companies may not break that down for you on a 1099 that they would send you also if you had to sell some livestock because if you're in the dry area especially in the northern part of the state there's two provisions the 133 and the 451 I won't go through this in detail but the 1033 is for only draft draft or breeding livestock and it does not have to have an emergency declaration so you can defer that up for up to two years but if there is a declaration in your county it goes up to four years and it can be extended by the IRS after that the 451 is for all types of livestock there you must have a federal designation of a disaster and that's for any type of livestock and this is for deferring sales above your normal level you may want to do a strategy for using the 1033 for your breeding livestock for your cows and maybe use the 451 for your calves also you can defer crop and crop and livestock sales into the future but usually if you sign a deferred payment contractors in big bowl letters says if this elevator or sales barn goes bankrupt you are on the bottom of the list to get any money but North Dakota does have a credit sale contract and divinity fund that may help if something happens also if you contract have a deferred payment contract you may want to not do it all in one contract do it in several contracts so if you're working on your income taxes with your tax preparer and you realize you deferred too much you can hold back a contract you don't have to defer it the IRS will take your money anytime and so that's why it's sometimes good to have more than one contract North Dakota had a big change this year really dropped the North Dakota taxes they were low to begin with but they're even lower now and there's a big exemption so if we're looking for married filing jointly you can earn up to $74,000 and pay no tax at all and after that it's very minimal also those of you that are getting property tax statements in the mail right now you are eligible for a $500 property tax credit you need to get that done by March 1st and then you will get a credit on your next tax bill I also encourage people to look at the farmer's tax guide this is a good publication 225 always work with your tax professional when you work on your taxes and I will entertain questions at a later time when we get done and so with that I'll turn it right over to Dave Yeah and my Christmas present to all attendees is that I will be skipping my talk for this month and I'll catch you in January so the floor is open for questions for any of the presenters today and we'll give you a minute or so to add any questions if you'd like I would like to make one note since I'm sharing my time with regards to Frank's comment about thin markets it reminds me about a story years ago about people cornering the orange juice market if you remember that around Christmas time it was a popular movie around the 1980s and Ron I know you've seen it Yeah, I can't recall the name right now but yeah, trading places right? That's it, yep, yep it should be mandatory viewing for all A.G.Con majors in my opinion but I think I've seen that movie but I vaguely remember it Why not have a watch party? Yeah, that used to be a sure deal because if you saw a frost coming to Florida there might be a lot of upside potential but if it doesn't happen there isn't a lot of downside potential So yeah, then the speculators would jump on it It's one of the best movies ever made It hits on a lot of cylinders including good agricultural economics, so Yeah All right, but since there are no more questions we will be meeting next month, next year I think one just popped up We did get one, right so go ahead and jump on that one give them their chance Frank? Well, this is for a friend Do we sell out of Spring Wheat now or wait? Based on what I see, I would wait I'd try and be patient with Spring Wheat I think there'll be some better chances as we get into late January and February Great, thanks Frank Yeah, and with that we will be back next month on January 18th We will likely be making a little announcement to do a little bit of marketing before then but plan on joining us all of 2024 for our market situation and outlook webinar Thank you