Wet Wednesday

Dow down 1011 points Wednesday to settle 20,740 and ugly at that.  As states shut down its getting harder and harder to come up with anything that can resemble an earnings estimate for a large block of US companies.  Bonds close 2 points and 2 tics higher, 181.04 with interest getting cheaper for the big players, if not you and me.  Scary part to me is that most of the big pension funds have probably already rolled positions for the quarter, so who is the next buyer to step to the plate?  Everything you think you know about the financial system you can throw out the window, other than in crude, all the independents will get sold out for pennies on the dollar to big oil, and crude then can go back to a profitable enterprise. Rice down 20 then up a dime on thin air, and settles up 2 cents, 1405 1/2.  Spread tightens during 600 rolls today, which is odd.  Corn funds sold an extra 20K of may futures to push us down 6 on the day, 334 3/4.  Wheat dropped 18 1/2 to 550 1/4. Beans fell 23 1/4 to 862 3/4.  So here it is in a nutshell.  Funds exaggerate markets down, commercials pay a basis premium in the front to get supply, but unless you are in the front, you cant capture that price, and for the most part the commercial gets to buy your grain for a lower price because futures pricing is stacked in the favor of the seller.  And the funds and the commercial know the calendar works against the farmer every year.   Why I pretty much only want cash deals anymore, especially deferred.   As long as the sell side can make the farmer go hat in hand to the government, this will continue, and since the commercial and the funds "donate" huge sums to the political class, and the farmer just wants to do his job, things aren't going to change much, other than lip service an a few bucks to quiet the squeaky wheel.  Material changes to pricing will only come about when farmers as a block entirely stop basis trades, or the exchanges fix the edges given freely to the sellers.