Livestock Cattle Weekly Nearby – chart as of February 22, 2016.

Drozd: Reversal patterns alert cattle producers to market downturn

Cattle markets took a sudden downturn in October 2014, catching many producers off guard

The live cattle market has been under pressure since the nearby futures market at the CME peaked at $171.975 per hundredweight in October 2014. In the 14 months that followed, prices on the weekly nearby live cattle futures chart plummeted $55/cwt to $116.975/cwt, before recovering $20 per hundredweight. Although the downturn was sudden, and may

CME Lean Hog Weekly nearby (chart as of Oct. 28, 2015)

Drozd: Reversal pattern alerts producers to downturn in lean hog market

The hog market took four years to climb, but only nine months to fall back

Lean hog futures have been on a slippery slope since the bull market rally ended in July 2014. The nearby futures contract went from a historical high of $133.875 per hundredweight to $57.775, losing 57 per cent of its value in only nine months. To put the enormity of this collapse in perspective, it took



Analyzing the loonie’s move to below par

The Canadian dollar has been trending lower, since it penetrated the lower boundary of the uptrending channel. I have found that chart analysis is a valuable resource for determining the price trend and where support and resistance to the trend may be anticipated. Trendlines During the course of a trend and all the fluctuations which


Classic topping action in soybean meal

Each day’s prices and the pattern configurations are a direct result of human decisions to buy and sell

Technical analysis is the study of market movement. Its strength and popularity comes from the assumption that future price direction can be predicted by studying a market’s past activity. Technical analysis is concerned exclusively with the market and certain statistics the market generates — prices, volume and open interest. In technical analysis, no consideration is



Spring wheat posts its highest price of open-market era

Watch for rising wedges in bear markets and falling wedges in bull markets, where they are most apt to occur

Red spring wheat grading No. 1 13.5 per cent protein reached $8 per bushel for the 2012-13 crop year. This is the highest price farmers have been able to lock in, since the open-market era was announced in mid-December 2011. True to form, wheat prices began their seasonal turn higher, just as the U.S. winter

A classic head and shoulders confirmed downturn

To those less familiar with charting and technical analysis, the recent drop in oat prices may have come as a bit of a surprise. What I have found in my 30 years’ experience, is that even though the oat futures market has a relatively small amount of open interest compared to actively traded commodities such



Breakaway gap alerts of counter-seasonal rally

On December 19, 2011, a breakaway gap materialized, alerting soybean producers and traders alike to a sudden change in the price direction of the soybean market. In fact, this gap not only confirmed an end to the downward price spiral, but it marked the beginning of a counter-seasonal rally, with soybean prices rallying $1.65 per