Staring Blankly at the Screen

Didn't come close to doing any trading today. July MGEX/CBOT spread continues to push the high end of the range around 1.22-1.24 premium, but certainly no desperation showing. Market is still comfortable with May MGEX at around 8.5 cents discount to July. I don't know how to reconcile that with the premiums paid for cash Hard Red Spring wheat...but there it is.

With corn futures falling over the last 2 days, there has been a modest bounce in the values for oats and wheat vs corn, but it is too little and much too late me on those trades. In retrospect, perhaps I should have been more cautious on those relative value trades, since the valuations were only attractive on the old crop corn. In other words, the rolling the short corn positions forward was always going to be very painful, so time was not on my side. And when you're putting on a "mean-reversion" trade, you really want time on your side.