You'd have more control and flexibility over your capital in terms of cutting losses and taking profits in terms of trading the spread between live cattle futures and corn futures in lieu of the care and feeding of live animals. Especially at your age - that's not an investment, it's a HUGE distraction for little $$$ given the head count you specify. JMHO - YMMV
Well it depends, waiting to find out all the details. I have a friend that is doing the same program (in another state) and bought 200 head he also received some sort of grant per head to help with the cost because it was a drought area I think. I don't have enough land to support that many though and not in a drought area either. I basically was viewing it as a cheap loan to jumpstart getting into the business. I already have a few and my dad has quite a few as well. I just run them on his land.
Bone, Appreciate the thoughts. I already have some but this would basically be to increase the amount quite a bit. 20-50 (probably somewhere in the middle depending on details) is definitely not a ton, but I think it's worth the time. We already have a smaller operation in place currently. It used to be much larger but we downsized quite awhile back. Just looking to ramp back up so it wouldn't be a major change. We will see. I have a meeting scheduled tomorrow on it all.
Spoke to the guy this morning and it is structured a bit differently than I thought but still not bad. Anyways, I'll update if I end up going forward with it all. @TraDaToR did you find anything out on the hog fundamentals? Awhile back I remember writing down two different spreads to enter around July. I believe one was Apr/May of the next year and then holding it for several months. I will look back and see if I can find the data on it and the other one.
I'm not subscribed to any of the seasonal historical research sites right now, but just looking back on barchart through 09 it seems to have done pretty well. It does look like it typically needs to be held for quite awhile
Had some guys buy some cheap soy oil puts and made some okay money on them. The funds were indeed unwinding their short ZM, long ZL positions.
That ZM spread sure dropped quick before I went to lunch. I am still in though and just saw it has come back a bit. Do any of you all follow this blog: http://seasonalfuturesspreads.blogspot.com/ It's the guy that runs Scarrtrading I believe. I just stumbled across it
ZL popping on the biofuel mandate that came out this morning. Not really sure how bullish the report actually is. Wondering if it's another chance to fade the move.