By Dan Looker, Business Editor
Yet, Nicholas is content with the results of his approach, which includes mainly cash forward contracts with elevators and selling put options on part of his crop.
Jeff Nicholas, who farms near
Clear Lake, Iowa, doesn’t claim to be a hotshot at marketing.
“My first caveat is that I’m not a sophisticated marketer,” he says as he checks prices on a laptop computer on his dining room table.
Photographs: Bob Modersohn
“I like to sell about a third of my Jeff Nicholas uses futures prices to decide when to forward-contract his farm’s corn. crop before I plant it. I like to sell a third of it when it’s growing. And I like to sell a third when the crop is in only, typically in the spring.” For about four years now, he the bin – while I sell the next year’s Nicholas farms with his father, Bill. has been working with Roach Ag crop,” he explains. And his son, Andrew, is likely to join Marketing, Ltd., a brokerage founded
His sales are front-loaded early the business. in Perry, Iowa, and now located in in the calendar year, “so it’s com- Nicholas’s grandfather was the first Boca Raton, Florida. pressed,” he says. turkey grower in Iowa to raise the He relies on Roach’s sell signals to
“I’m a very strong believer in the birds in confinement. The building help decide the timing of sales. (John seasonality of markets,” he says. still stands along the highway near Roach describes his approach to de-
So that first third is sold in early Mason City. In the 1970s, with high termining sell signals on page 60.) spring (when he’s also clearing out grain prices, the family got out of “He has a formula he uses, but his old crop stored grain). The sec- turkey production. with some Kentucky windage,” ond third is sold in late spring, and Nicholas and his brother, Bill Jr., Nicholas jokes. the rest is sold in June and July. own some farm machinery together A sell signal usually last four to six
He also typically sells his farm’s and plant together. But they farm days before there’s a drop in prices. corn 12 to 15 times a year. and harvest separately. Nicholas also sold more last sum-
Like most corn and soybean grow- mer than he normally might. ers, he also puts more energy into Staying Flexible “This year, when we had such an marketing corn than soybeans. Even though Nicholas approaches opportunity to sell at – and I’ll prob-
“I do not put as much effort into marketing systematically, he’s not ably offend a lot of people by saying marketing beans,” he says. “I know rigid about that schedule, especially this – grotesquely high prices, I
I should, but it always seems corn in a bull market year like the sum- might have sold a half to two thirds,” is the one I pay more attention to. I mer of 2008. he says. would say that 90% of the time my Nicholas backs up his forward soybeans are sold in the cash market contracting with crop insurance
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