@sdelsad/commodity-desk-daily 1.0.52 → 1.0.53
This diff represents the content of publicly available package versions that have been released to one of the supported registries. The information contained in this diff is provided for informational purposes only and reflects changes between package versions as they appear in their respective public registries.
- package/covered.md +1 -0
- package/ep17.md +188 -0
- package/ep17.script.txt +99 -0
- package/feed.xml +12 -0
- package/glossary.md +8 -0
- package/package.json +2 -2
- package/email.html +0 -116
- package/email.txt +0 -570
- package/ep09.html +0 -709
- package/ep09.md +0 -258
- package/ep09.script.txt +0 -124
- package/ep09_chart1.png +0 -0
- package/ep09_chart2.png +0 -0
- package/ep09_chart3.png +0 -0
- package/ep16.html +0 -727
- package/ep16.md +0 -256
- package/ep16.script.txt +0 -111
- package/ep16_chart1.png +0 -0
- package/ep16_chart2.png +0 -0
- package/ep16_chart3.png +0 -0
package/ep16.html
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<title>Ep 16 — Spreads: Calendar, Inter-Commodity, Inter-Exchange · Soft Commodity Trading</title>
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<meta name="description" content="Two wheat curves lean opposite ways on the same Friday, and the spread between them carries a currency nobody ordered.">
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<meta name="author" content="Sébastien Delsad">
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<meta property="og:description" content="Two wheat curves lean opposite ways on the same Friday, and the spread between them carries a currency nobody ordered.">
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<meta property="og:image:alt" content="Soft Commodity Trading cover art">
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<meta property="og:audio" content="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/@sdelsad/commodity-desk-daily@1.0.49/ep16.mp3">
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<a href="https://storage.googleapis.com/podcast-audio-2647223968/index.html">Soft Commodity Trading</a>
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<p class="dek">Two wheat curves lean opposite ways on the same Friday, and the spread between them carries a currency nobody ordered.</p>
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<div class="meta">Monday 7 September 2026 · <b>12 min 05</b></div>
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<nav class="toc" id="toc" aria-label="Contents"><p class="tochead">Contents</p><ol><li class="t2"><a href="#market-pulse">Market pulse</a></li><li class="t2"><a href="#key-takeaways">Key takeaways</a></li><li class="t2"><a href="#vocabulary">Vocabulary</a></li><li class="t2"><a href="#quiz">Quiz</a></li><li class="t2"><a href="#solutions">Solutions</a></li><li class="t2"><a href="#the-episode-in-writing">The episode, in writing</a></li><li class="t3"><a href="#one-market-two-months">One market, two months</a></li><li class="t3"><a href="#the-asymmetry-that-makes-a-carry-trade-dangerous">The asymmetry that makes a carry trade dangerous backwards</a></li><li class="t3"><a href="#paris-leaning-the-other-way">Paris, leaning the other way</a></li><li class="t3"><a href="#two-crops-one-month">Two crops, one month</a></li><li class="t3"><a href="#two-exchanges-and-a-currency-nobody-ordered">Two exchanges, and a currency nobody ordered</a></li><li class="t3"><a href="#why-14-33-is-not-an-arbitrage">Why €14.33 is not an arbitrage</a></li><li class="t3"><a href="#three-ways-a-spread-is-bigger-than-the-outright">Three ways a spread is bigger than the outright it replaced</a></li><li class="t2"><a href="#glossary">Glossary</a></li></ol></nav>
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<h2 id="market-pulse">Market pulse<a class="anchor" href="#market-pulse" aria-label="Link to this section">#</a></h2>
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<p><strong>Wheat lost fifty cents on the week in Chicago, and almost none of it was about wheat.</strong></p>
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<p>Monday was Labor Day, so the CBOT day session was shut and Friday's settlements are the last prints available. USDA's Crop Progress report moves to Tuesday, and the September WASDE lands on Friday 11 September.</p>
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<div class="tablewrap" tabindex="0" role="region" aria-label="Table, scrolls sideways"><table><thead><tr><th>Contract</th><th>Settle</th><th class="num">Change</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Dec corn, CBOT</td><td>536¾ ¢/bu</td><td class="num"><span class="mv down">−4</span></td></tr><tr><td>Nov soybeans, CBOT</td><td>1309¾ ¢/bu</td><td class="num"><span class="mv down">−6½</span></td></tr><tr><td>Dec Chicago SRW wheat</td><td>734.00 ¢/bu</td><td class="num"><span class="mv down">−20¼</span></td></tr><tr><td>Dec Kansas City HRW wheat</td><td>802¼ ¢/bu</td><td class="num"><span class="mv down">−13¼</span></td></tr><tr><td>Dec Matif milling wheat</td><td>€246.25 /t</td><td class="num"><span class="mv down">−2.50</span></td></tr><tr><td>Dec soymeal, CBOT</td><td>$355.10 /t</td><td class="num"><span class="mv down">−0.40</span></td></tr><tr><td>Dec soybean oil, CBOT</td><td>69.27 ¢/lb</td><td class="num"><span class="mv down">−77 pts</span></td></tr></tbody></table></div>
|
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420
|
-
<p>Wheat did the work, and it did it downward: Chicago fell 50 cents on the week, Kansas City 42, Minneapolis 24¼. The rest of the board was quiet by comparison, with corn effectively unchanged on the week and beans supported by a sixth consecutive business day of flash sales — 250,600 t on Friday alone, taking the run to 1,347,600 t of soybeans booked to China and to unknown destinations.</p>
|
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421
|
-
<p>The pressure on wheat came from two directions at once, and neither was a supply number. On 1 September Moscow cut its export duty on wheat, barley and corn to zero through the end of the year; the wheat duty had been RUB 787.5 a tonne. Then American envoys travelled to Moscow and Kyiv over the weekend of 5–6 September.</p>
|
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422
|
-
<p><strong>The geopolitical read.</strong> Set both against what has not changed. More than ninety percent of Russia's Azov–Black Sea loading capacity is still offline: all three Novorossiysk terminals suspended since mid-August, Taman since late July, Azov navigation suspended, Tuapse the only terminal working in a basin that shipped 46.3 Mt last season. Russia's August export programme was cut to 2.7–3.1 Mt against 4.5 Mt a year earlier. None of that was repaired last week.</p>
|
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423
|
-
<p>So the transmission is not through supply. It is through expectation. A war-risk premium is a price paid for disruption a buyer thinks is coming, and diplomacy changes what he thinks is coming without mending a single loading arm. The duty cut works the same way — it does not create export capacity, it lowers the tax on whatever capacity survives, and analysts read it as three to four dollars a tonne off Russian FOB offers.</p>
|
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424
|
-
<p>The evidence that this was an expectation trade rather than a supply trade is in the spread. Chicago soft red, the class that competes directly with Black Sea wheat for the same export business, fell twice as far as Minneapolis spring, which largely does not.</p>
|
|
425
|
-
<figure class="chartfig">
|
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426
|
-
<figcaption class="charttitle">Wheat's week, by class</figcaption>
|
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427
|
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<svg class="chart" viewBox="0 0 640 330" width="100%" preserveAspectRatio="xMidYMid meet" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" role="img">
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428
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<style>.chart{--c-a:var(--accent,#1d4032);--c-b:var(--gold,#a8813c);--c-c:#4a6f8c;font-family:inherit}html[data-theme="dark"] .chart{--c-c:#7ba3c4}.chart .grid{stroke:var(--line,#ddd6c9);stroke-width:1}.chart .axis{fill:var(--ink-soft,#4a4238);font-size:12px}.chart .unit{fill:var(--ink-soft,#4a4238);font-size:11px;letter-spacing:.06em;text-transform:uppercase}.chart .ln{fill:none;stroke-width:2.25;stroke-linejoin:round;stroke-linecap:round}.chart .lg{fill:var(--ink,#16110c);font-size:12.5px}.chart .vlabel{fill:var(--ink,#16110c);font-size:11.5px;font-weight:600}@media (max-width:900px){.chart .axis{font-size:14px}.chart .unit{font-size:13px}.chart .lg{font-size:14.5px}.chart .vlabel{font-size:13.5px}.chart .ln{stroke-width:2.6}}@media (max-width:640px){.chart .axis{font-size:16px}.chart .unit{font-size:14px}.chart .lg{font-size:16px}.chart .vlabel{font-size:15px}.chart .ln{stroke-width:3.1}}</style>
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429
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<line class="grid" x1="56" y1="286.0" x2="622" y2="286.0" opacity=".45"/>
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430
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<text class="axis" x="46" y="290.0" text-anchor="end">-50</text>
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431
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<line class="grid" x1="56" y1="234.0" x2="622" y2="234.0" opacity=".45"/>
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432
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<text class="axis" x="46" y="238.0" text-anchor="end">-40</text>
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433
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<line class="grid" x1="56" y1="182.0" x2="622" y2="182.0" opacity=".45"/>
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434
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-
<text class="axis" x="46" y="186.0" text-anchor="end">-30</text>
|
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435
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-
<line class="grid" x1="56" y1="130.0" x2="622" y2="130.0" opacity=".45"/>
|
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436
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-
<text class="axis" x="46" y="134.0" text-anchor="end">-20</text>
|
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437
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-
<line class="grid" x1="56" y1="78.0" x2="622" y2="78.0" opacity=".45"/>
|
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438
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-
<text class="axis" x="46" y="82.0" text-anchor="end">-10</text>
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439
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-
<line class="grid" x1="56" y1="26.0" x2="622" y2="26.0"/>
|
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440
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-
<text class="axis" x="46" y="30.0" text-anchor="end">0</text>
|
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441
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-
<text class="unit" x="46" y="16" text-anchor="end">¢/bu</text>
|
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442
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-
<text class="axis" x="150.3" y="306" text-anchor="middle">Chicago SRW</text>
|
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443
|
-
<text class="axis" x="339.0" y="306" text-anchor="middle">Kansas City HRW</text>
|
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444
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-
<text class="axis" x="527.7" y="306" text-anchor="middle">Minneapolis spring</text>
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445
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-
<rect x="130.1" y="26.0" width="40.5" height="260.0" rx="2" fill="var(--c-a)" opacity=".85"/>
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446
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-
<rect x="318.8" y="26.0" width="40.5" height="218.4" rx="2" fill="var(--c-a)" opacity=".85"/>
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447
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-
<rect x="507.4" y="26.0" width="40.5" height="126.1" rx="2" fill="var(--c-a)" opacity=".85"/>
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448
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-
<line class="grid" x1="56" y1="26.0" x2="622" y2="26.0"/>
|
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449
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-
</svg>
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450
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-
<figcaption class="chartcap">The class that competes head-on with Black Sea wheat lost twice what spring wheat lost. The collapse was a spread, not a market. <span class="chartsrc">CBOT, KCBT and MIAX settlements, week ending Friday 4 September 2026</span></figcaption>
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451
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-
</figure>
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452
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-
<h2 id="key-takeaways">Key takeaways<a class="anchor" href="#key-takeaways" aria-label="Link to this section">#</a></h2>
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453
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-
<ul><li>A flat price tells you a level. A <strong>spread tells you a condition</strong> — and the condition is usually the tradeable part.</li><li>Read a calendar spread as a <strong>percentage of full carry</strong>, never in cents. Fifteen cents means nothing until you know that carrying the grain costs thirty-three.</li><li>A carry spread has a <strong>ceiling and no floor</strong>. Full carry caps it, because anyone with a bin can arbitrage past that point. Nothing caps an inversion. Long the carry and short the carry are not the same trade run backwards.</li><li>An inter-commodity spread is a <strong>distance to substitution</strong>. Wheat 27.6 percent over corn per tonne means the feed bid is nowhere near, so nothing is waiting underneath the market to catch it.</li><li>An inter-exchange spread is an <strong>opinion, not an arbitrage</strong>. No delivery mechanism forces Paris and Chicago together, in either direction, ever.</li><li>A spread is not a smaller position. The <strong>currency arrives free</strong>, the <strong>margin credit buys size</strong>, and the correlation holding the two legs together is an assumption rather than a contract — one that tends to fail exactly when the story that created it resolves.</li></ul>
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454
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-
<h2 id="vocabulary">Vocabulary<a class="anchor" href="#vocabulary" aria-label="Link to this section">#</a></h2>
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455
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-
<div class="tablewrap" tabindex="0" role="region" aria-label="Table, scrolls sideways"><table><thead><tr><th>Term</th><th>Meaning</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td><strong>percent of full carry</strong></td><td>A calendar spread expressed as a fraction of the interest and storage cost of holding the grain to the later month — how the trade actually quotes a curve</td></tr><tr><td><strong>bull spread</strong></td><td>A calendar position long the nearer month and short the deferred, which profits when the carry narrows or the curve inverts</td></tr><tr><td><strong>bear spread</strong></td><td>A calendar position short the nearer month and long the deferred, which profits when the carry widens toward full carry</td></tr><tr><td><strong>leg</strong></td><td>One of the individual contracts making up a spread, each executed and margined in its own right</td></tr><tr><td><strong>legging in</strong></td><td>Executing a spread one leg at a time rather than as a single spread order, accepting outright exposure in between in exchange for a better fill</td></tr><tr><td><strong>spread margin credit</strong></td><td>The reduction in initial margin an exchange grants a recognised spread, which lowers the cost of a position without lowering its risk per tonne</td></tr><tr><td><strong>wheat–corn spread</strong></td><td>The price difference between wheat and corn futures, read as the distance wheat must still fall before feeders substitute it into a ration</td></tr><tr><td><strong>FX leg</strong></td><td>The currency exposure that arrives unbidden in an inter-exchange spread whose two legs settle in different currencies</td></tr><tr><td><strong>relative value</strong></td><td>A position expressing a view on the difference between two prices rather than on the direction of either</td></tr><tr><td><strong>convergence</strong></td><td>The pull of a futures price toward the cash value of its deliverable as delivery approaches, which disciplines a calendar spread and has no counterpart across two exchanges</td></tr></tbody></table></div>
|
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456
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-
<h2 id="quiz">Quiz<a class="anchor" href="#quiz" aria-label="Link to this section">#</a></h2>
|
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457
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-
<p id="q1" class="qq"><strong>Q1.</strong> On Friday 4 September, Chicago December wheat settled at 734.00 ¢/bu and Matif December milling wheat at €246.25/t, with the euro at $1.1629. A relative-value desk thinks the European market is too dear against Chicago and sells the premium in 30,000 t: short Matif December, long CBOT December, equal tonnage. Use 36.744 bu to the tonne.</p>
|
|
458
|
-
<ul><li>What is the Matif premium over Chicago, in euros per tonne, at the moment the trade goes on — and how many contracts is each leg?</li><li>Two weeks later Chicago December is 772.00 and Matif December is €243.00, with the euro at $1.1900. What is the P&L on the spread, in euros?</li><li>Of that P&L, how much came from wheat and how much from the currency?</li></ul>
|
|
459
|
-
<p id="q2" class="qq"><strong>Q2.</strong> Chicago December wheat settled at 734.00 ¢/bu and March 2027 at 749.25 ¢/bu. Money costs 5 percent and commercial storage runs 8 ¢/bu per month. What percentage of full carry is the December–March spread paying?</p>
|
|
460
|
-
<p id="q3" class="qq"><strong>Q3.</strong> The cotton on-call report of 21 August 2026 showed March 2027 carrying 12,519 lots more unfixed sales than unfixed purchases. Does that balance represent latent buying or latent selling in March futures?</p>
|
|
461
|
-
<p id="q4" class="qq"><strong>Q4.</strong> A coffee exporter has sold on a buyer's-call price-to-be-fixed contract and is fully hedged with a short futures position. The market rallies thirty cents a pound before the buyer fixes, and he remains flat on price throughout. Which exposure has grown?</p>
|
|
462
|
-
<p id="q5" class="qq"><strong>Q5.</strong> <em>Conversion drill.</em> Kansas City December hard red winter wheat settled at 802.25 ¢/bu. What is that in dollars per tonne?</p>
|
|
463
|
-
<h2 id="solutions">Solutions<a class="anchor" href="#solutions" aria-label="Link to this section">#</a></h2><p class="secnote">One reveal per question — check your answer to Q1 without spoiling the rest.</p><div class="solnbar"><button type="button" class="ghost" data-solnall="open">Reveal all</button><button type="button" class="ghost" data-solnall="close">Hide all</button></div>
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|
464
|
-
<details class="soln" id="a1"><summary><span class="qn">Q1</span><span class="sl">Reveal the answer</span></summary><div class="solnbody"><p>The trade is three positions wearing the costume of two. Work each leg in its own currency and convert once, at the end — that discipline is what makes the third part of the question answerable at all.</p>
|
|
465
|
-
<p><em>The premium on day one.</em> Chicago has to be dragged into Paris's units before the two numbers can be compared.</p>
|
|
466
|
-
<div class="tablewrap" tabindex="0" role="region" aria-label="Table, scrolls sideways"><table><thead><tr><th>Step</th><th class="num">Value</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>CBOT Dec</td><td class="num">734.00 ¢/bu</td></tr><tr><td>× 36.744 bu/t</td><td class="num">$269.70 /t</td></tr><tr><td>÷ 1.1629 $/€</td><td class="num">€231.92 /t</td></tr><tr><td>Matif Dec</td><td class="num">€246.25 /t</td></tr><tr><td><strong>Matif premium</strong></td><td class="num"><strong>€14.33 /t</strong></td></tr></tbody></table></div>
|
|
467
|
-
<p><em>The legs.</em> 30,000 t × 36.744 = 1,102,320 bu, which at 5,000 bu a lot is <strong>220 lots</strong> of CBOT wheat. The Matif contract is 50 t, so the other leg is <strong>600 contracts</strong>. Note that 220 lots is 1,100,000 bu, or 29,937 t — the hedge does not fit the tonnage exactly, and on a spread that residual is an outright position in Chicago, small but real.</p>
|
|
468
|
-
<p><em>The P&L.</em> Recompute the premium on the new prices and the new rate.</p>
|
|
469
|
-
<div class="tablewrap" tabindex="0" role="region" aria-label="Table, scrolls sideways"><table><thead><tr><th></th><th class="num">Day one</th><th class="num">Two weeks later</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>CBOT Dec</td><td class="num">734.00 ¢/bu</td><td class="num">772.00 ¢/bu</td></tr><tr><td>CBOT in $/t</td><td class="num">$269.70</td><td class="num">$283.66</td></tr><tr><td>EUR/USD</td><td class="num">1.1629</td><td class="num">1.1900</td></tr><tr><td>CBOT in €/t</td><td class="num">€231.92</td><td class="num">€238.37</td></tr><tr><td>Matif Dec</td><td class="num">€246.25</td><td class="num">€243.00</td></tr><tr><td><strong>Premium</strong></td><td class="num"><strong>€14.33</strong></td><td class="num"><strong>€4.63</strong></td></tr></tbody></table></div>
|
|
470
|
-
<p>The desk was short the premium, so it profits as the premium narrows: €14.33 − €4.63 = <strong>€9.70/t</strong>, and on 30,000 t that is <strong>€291,000</strong>.</p>
|
|
471
|
-
<p><em>Wheat versus currency.</em> Hold the exchange rate at 1.1629 and run it again. Chicago at $283.66 would have been €243.93, so the premium would have gone to €243.00 − €243.93 = <strong>−€0.93</strong> — Chicago above Matif, a €15.26 narrowing, worth <strong>€457,800</strong>.</p>
|
|
472
|
-
<p>The euro took the difference: €457,800 − €291,000 = <strong>€166,800</strong>, more than a third of the wheat P&L.</p>
|
|
473
|
-
<p><strong>The trap the question is testing:</strong> the desk put on a wheat trade and was paid in wheat and in euros, in roughly two parts to one. Long CBOT is long a dollar-denominated asset — about $8.1 million of it on 30,000 t — and the euro strengthened. Nobody sized that position, nobody approved it, and it does not appear on a wheat risk report. It arrived attached to the spread. The fix is a separate FX hedge on the euro value of the dollar leg, rolled as the leg's value moves; the mistake is believing that a spread whose two legs are equal in tonnes is a position that is flat in anything.</p>
|
|
474
|
-
<p class="backq"><a href="#q1">↑ Back to question 1</a></p></div></details>
|
|
475
|
-
<details class="soln" id="a2"><summary><span class="qn">Q2</span><span class="sl">Reveal the answer</span></summary><div class="solnbody"><p>Full carry is what it costs to own the grain for the three months between the contracts.</p>
|
|
476
|
-
<div class="tablewrap" tabindex="0" role="region" aria-label="Table, scrolls sideways"><table><thead><tr><th></th><th class="num">¢/bu</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Interest: $7.34 at 5% for three months</td><td class="num">9.18</td></tr><tr><td>Storage: 8 ¢/bu × 3 months</td><td class="num">24.00</td></tr><tr><td><strong>Full carry, Dec to Mar</strong></td><td class="num"><strong>33.18</strong></td></tr></tbody></table></div>
|
|
477
|
-
<p>The market is paying 749.25 − 734.00 = 15.25 ¢. So 15.25 ÷ 33.18 = <strong>46 percent of full carry</strong>.</p>
|
|
478
|
-
<p>Read it: the market is covering slightly under half the cost of storing wheat until March. Near full carry — above roughly 80 percent — the market is paying almost anyone to take grain off its hands, which is what a glut looks like on a curve. Under half, storing is a losing business and the market would rather the grain moved now. Forty-six percent is an ordinary, adequately supplied market with no urgency in either direction.</p>
|
|
479
|
-
<p>The second half of the reading is the asymmetry. That 46 percent can rise to about 100 and then stops, because past full carry anyone with an empty bin buys December, stores the wheat, sells March and collects the difference risk-free. There is no equivalent force on the way down. The spread can go to zero and invert without limit. A bear spread — short the front, long the deferred — is therefore a bounded trade; a bull spread is not.</p>
|
|
480
|
-
<p class="backq"><a href="#q2">↑ Back to question 2</a></p></div></details>
|
|
481
|
-
<details class="soln" id="a3"><summary><span class="qn">Q3</span><span class="sl">Reveal the answer</span></summary><div class="solnbody"><p><strong>Latent buying</strong>, and the direction is the part that catches people.</p>
|
|
482
|
-
<p>An unfixed <em>sale</em> is cotton a merchant has sold to a mill at a differential, with the mill holding the right to fix. The mill has the cotton and has not priced it, so its cost rises with the board. To stop that, it must eventually buy futures. Net 12,519 lots of unfixed sales in March 2027 is therefore 12,519 lots of buying that has to arrive in the March contract before first notice day, whatever the mills would prefer.</p>
|
|
483
|
-
<p>The trap is symmetry: an unfixed <em>purchase</em> — a merchant who has bought from a grower with the grower holding the right to fix — is the mirror image, and resolves as latent selling. Reading the total instead of the net, or reading the net with the sign backwards, turns a forced-buying signal into a forced-selling one.</p>
|
|
484
|
-
<p class="backq"><a href="#q3">↑ Back to question 3</a></p></div></details>
|
|
485
|
-
<details class="soln" id="a4"><summary><span class="qn">Q4</span><span class="sl">Reveal the answer</span></summary><div class="solnbody"><p><strong>Credit</strong> — and, alongside it, cash.</p>
|
|
486
|
-
<p>He is flat on price: the physical sale and the short futures move against each other cent for cent, which is exactly what the hedge is for. But a thirty-cent rally on a 37,500 lb Coffee C contract is 30 × 375 = <strong>$11,250 a lot</strong>, and his short hedge pays that out in variation margin, in cash, every day the market goes up. The buyer, who holds the winning side of the unfixed leg, has posted nothing at all — his gain sits as an unrealised claim against a contract, not as money in an account.</p>
|
|
487
|
-
<p>That is the structure worth remembering: fixing risk is sold as market risk and settled as credit risk. The exporter's exposure is no longer to the coffee price but to whether the buyer is still solvent and still willing to fix when the time comes — and that exposure grows by $11,250 a lot for every thirty cents the market rallies. The desk that funds the margin call is carrying the counterparty, not the market.</p>
|
|
488
|
-
<p class="backq"><a href="#q4">↑ Back to question 4</a></p></div></details>
|
|
489
|
-
<details class="soln" id="a5"><summary><span class="qn">Q5</span><span class="sl">Reveal the answer</span></summary><div class="solnbody"><p>Wheat converts at 36.744 bu to the tonne, so cents per bushel become dollars per tonne by multiplying by 0.36744.</p>
|
|
490
|
-
<p>$8.0225/bu × 36.744 = <strong>$294.78 /t</strong>.</p>
|
|
491
|
-
<p>Mentally: take a third of 802 and add a tenth of that third — 267 + 27 ≈ 294. Close enough to quote across a desk, and worth carrying because Kansas City trades in cents while the buyer in Algeria or Nigeria is thinking in dollars a tonne.</p>
|
|
492
|
-
<p class="backq"><a href="#q5">↑ Back to question 5</a></p></div></details><h2 id="the-episode-in-writing">The episode, in writing<a class="anchor" href="#the-episode-in-writing" aria-label="Link to this section">#</a></h2>
|
|
493
|
-
<h3 id="one-market-two-months">One market, two months<a class="anchor" href="#one-market-two-months" aria-label="Link to this section">#</a></h3>
|
|
494
|
-
<p>The simplest spread there is: one contract, two delivery months.</p>
|
|
495
|
-
<p>Chicago December wheat settled at 734.00 ¢/bu on Friday. March 2027 settled at 749.25. March is 15¼ cents over December, which is another way of saying the market will pay you fifteen cents to hold the wheat for three months instead of selling it now.</p>
|
|
496
|
-
<p>Is fifteen cents a lot? On its own the question has no answer. It needs a yardstick, and the yardstick is what holding the wheat actually costs: money and space.</p>
|
|
497
|
-
<div class="tablewrap" tabindex="0" role="region" aria-label="Table, scrolls sideways"><table><thead><tr><th></th><th class="num">¢/bu</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Interest on $7.34 at 5%, three months</td><td class="num">9.18</td></tr><tr><td>Commercial storage, 8 ¢/bu/month</td><td class="num">24.00</td></tr><tr><td><strong>Full carry</strong></td><td class="num"><strong>33.18</strong></td></tr></tbody></table></div>
|
|
498
|
-
<p>Fifteen and a quarter against thirty-three and a fifth is <strong>46 percent of full carry</strong>, and that is the number a desk actually says out loud. Nobody quotes the December–March at fifteen and a quarter. They say it is at forty-six percent of carry, because the percentage travels between commodities and across years while the cents do not.</p>
|
|
499
|
-
<p>The reading is direct. Near full carry, the market is desperate for someone to store grain — supply has arrived faster than demand can absorb it, and the curve is bidding for bin space. Below about half, storage is a losing proposition and the market is asking for the grain now. Forty-six percent describes an unexceptional market: enough wheat, no emergency, no glut.</p>
|
|
500
|
-
<h3 id="the-asymmetry-that-makes-a-carry-trade-dangerous">The asymmetry that makes a carry trade dangerous backwards<a class="anchor" href="#the-asymmetry-that-makes-a-carry-trade-dangerous" aria-label="Link to this section">#</a></h3>
|
|
501
|
-
<p>Here is what the percentage hides. The spread has a ceiling and no floor.</p>
|
|
502
|
-
<p>It cannot travel far past full carry, because if it did the trade would be free: buy December, put the wheat in a bin, sell March, deliver, and collect the excess over your costs. That arbitrage is available to every commercial with storage, so it caps the carry in practice.</p>
|
|
503
|
-
<p>Nothing whatsoever caps the other direction. A carry can narrow to zero and then invert, and it can keep inverting for as long as somebody needs the grain in front of them more than they need it later. There is no counter-trade, because you cannot borrow wheat out of the future.</p>
|
|
504
|
-
<p>So the two sides of the same instrument are not mirror images:</p>
|
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505
|
-
<ul><li><strong>Bear spread</strong> — short the front, long the deferred. Bounded. The most you can lose is the distance to full carry.</li><li><strong>Bull spread</strong> — long the front, short the deferred. Unbounded. An inversion has no theoretical limit.</li></ul>
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506
|
-
<p>Desks that blow up on calendar spreads almost always blow up on the second one, having sized it as though it behaved like the first.</p>
|
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507
|
-
<h3 id="paris-leaning-the-other-way">Paris, leaning the other way<a class="anchor" href="#paris-leaning-the-other-way" aria-label="Link to this section">#</a></h3>
|
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508
|
-
<p>Now the same instrument in Europe. Matif December milling wheat settled at €246.25/t, March at €244.50. December is €1.75 <em>over</em> March.</p>
|
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509
|
-
<p>There is no percent of carry to compute, because the carry is negative. The market is not paying anyone to store wheat. It is charging them. In plain terms, Europe wants wheat now rather than in March — which is what you would expect of the origin that has to serve the buyers the Black Sea currently cannot.</p>
|
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510
|
-
<p>Two curves, the same grain, the same Friday, leaning in opposite directions.</p>
|
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511
|
-
<figure class="chartfig">
|
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512
|
-
<figcaption class="charttitle">Two wheat curves, opposite shapes</figcaption>
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|
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<svg class="chart" viewBox="0 0 640 356" width="100%" preserveAspectRatio="xMidYMid meet" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" role="img">
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514
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<style>.chart{--c-a:var(--accent,#1d4032);--c-b:var(--gold,#a8813c);--c-c:#4a6f8c;font-family:inherit}html[data-theme="dark"] .chart{--c-c:#7ba3c4}.chart .grid{stroke:var(--line,#ddd6c9);stroke-width:1}.chart .axis{fill:var(--ink-soft,#4a4238);font-size:12px}.chart .unit{fill:var(--ink-soft,#4a4238);font-size:11px;letter-spacing:.06em;text-transform:uppercase}.chart .ln{fill:none;stroke-width:2.25;stroke-linejoin:round;stroke-linecap:round}.chart .lg{fill:var(--ink,#16110c);font-size:12.5px}.chart .vlabel{fill:var(--ink,#16110c);font-size:11.5px;font-weight:600}@media (max-width:900px){.chart .axis{font-size:14px}.chart .unit{font-size:13px}.chart .lg{font-size:14.5px}.chart .vlabel{font-size:13.5px}.chart .ln{stroke-width:2.6}}@media (max-width:640px){.chart .axis{font-size:16px}.chart .unit{font-size:14px}.chart .lg{font-size:16px}.chart .vlabel{font-size:15px}.chart .ln{stroke-width:3.1}}</style>
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<line class="grid" x1="56" y1="312.0" x2="622" y2="312.0" opacity=".45"/>
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<text class="axis" x="46" y="316.0" text-anchor="end">92.5</text>
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517
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<line class="grid" x1="56" y1="260.0" x2="622" y2="260.0" opacity=".45"/>
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<text class="axis" x="46" y="264.0" text-anchor="end">95</text>
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<line class="grid" x1="56" y1="208.0" x2="622" y2="208.0" opacity=".45"/>
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520
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<text class="axis" x="46" y="212.0" text-anchor="end">97.5</text>
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521
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<line class="grid" x1="56" y1="156.0" x2="622" y2="156.0" opacity=".45"/>
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522
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<text class="axis" x="46" y="160.0" text-anchor="end">100</text>
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523
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<line class="grid" x1="56" y1="104.0" x2="622" y2="104.0" opacity=".45"/>
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<text class="axis" x="46" y="108.0" text-anchor="end">102</text>
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<line class="grid" x1="56" y1="52.0" x2="622" y2="52.0" opacity=".45"/>
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526
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<text class="axis" x="46" y="56.0" text-anchor="end">105</text>
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527
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-
<text class="unit" x="622" y="42" text-anchor="end">index, Dec 26 = 100</text>
|
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528
|
-
<text class="axis" x="56.0" y="332" text-anchor="middle">Dec 26</text>
|
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529
|
-
<text class="axis" x="244.7" y="332" text-anchor="middle">Mar 27</text>
|
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530
|
-
<text class="axis" x="433.3" y="332" text-anchor="middle">May 27</text>
|
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531
|
-
<text class="axis" x="622.0" y="332" text-anchor="end">Sep 27</text>
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532
|
-
<path class="ln" d="M56.0 156.0 L244.7 112.7 L433.3 91.5 L622.0 92.1" stroke="var(--c-a)"/>
|
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533
|
-
<circle cx="622.0" cy="92.1" r="3.4" fill="var(--c-a)"/>
|
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534
|
-
<path class="ln" d="M56.0 156.0 L244.7 170.8 L433.3 172.8 L622.0 265.8" stroke="var(--c-b)"/>
|
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535
|
-
<circle cx="622.0" cy="265.8" r="3.4" fill="var(--c-b)"/>
|
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536
|
-
<rect x="56" y="22" width="18" height="3" rx="1.5" fill="var(--c-a)"/>
|
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537
|
-
<text class="lg" x="81" y="29">CBOT wheat</text>
|
|
538
|
-
<rect x="168.0" y="22" width="18" height="3" rx="1.5" fill="var(--c-b)"/>
|
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539
|
-
<text class="lg" x="193.0" y="29">Matif milling wheat</text>
|
|
540
|
-
</svg>
|
|
541
|
-
<figcaption class="chartcap">Chicago pays you to wait and Paris charges you for it. Rebased to December, the American curve rises across the year and the European one falls away. <span class="chartsrc">CBOT settlements (USDA AMS) and Euronext milling wheat settlements, Friday 4 September 2026</span></figcaption>
|
|
542
|
-
</figure>
|
|
543
|
-
<h3 id="two-crops-one-month">Two crops, one month<a class="anchor" href="#two-crops-one-month" aria-label="Link to this section">#</a></h3>
|
|
544
|
-
<p>The second axis. December wheat at 734.00 against December corn at 536¾ is a spread of 197¼ ¢/bu — wheat is nearly two dollars a bushel over corn.</p>
|
|
545
|
-
<p>Cents per bushel is the wrong unit for that comparison, because a bushel of wheat and a bushel of corn are not the same weight. Corn converts at 39.368 bu to the tonne, wheat at 36.744. On a tonne:</p>
|
|
546
|
-
<div class="tablewrap" tabindex="0" role="region" aria-label="Table, scrolls sideways"><table><thead><tr><th></th><th class="num">$/t</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Dec wheat</td><td class="num">269.70</td></tr><tr><td>Dec corn</td><td class="num">211.31</td></tr><tr><td><strong>Wheat over corn</strong></td><td class="num"><strong>58.39, or 27.6%</strong></td></tr></tbody></table></div>
|
|
547
|
-
<p>That number has a use. Wheat has a second life as animal feed, and when it gets cheap enough relative to corn, feeders substitute it into the ration. That substitution is the demand that switches on underneath a falling wheat price — the closest thing wheat has to a floor.</p>
|
|
548
|
-
<p>It switches on near parity per tonne, a little above if anything, since wheat carries more protein. Twenty-eight percent over corn is not near parity. So the spread is saying something specific this morning: wheat is still trading as food, and there is no feed bid waiting below it. On a week when wheat fell fifty cents, that is worth knowing.</p>
|
|
549
|
-
<h3 id="two-exchanges-and-a-currency-nobody-ordered">Two exchanges, and a currency nobody ordered<a class="anchor" href="#two-exchanges-and-a-currency-nobody-ordered" aria-label="Link to this section">#</a></h3>
|
|
550
|
-
<p>The third axis is the hard one, because the two markets are not quoted in the same anything. Chicago is cents per bushel. Paris is euros per tonne. Getting them into one number takes two steps and introduces a third position.</p>
|
|
551
|
-
<div class="tablewrap" tabindex="0" role="region" aria-label="Table, scrolls sideways"><table><thead><tr><th>Step</th><th class="num">Value</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>CBOT Dec wheat</td><td class="num">734.00 ¢/bu</td></tr><tr><td>× 36.744 bu/t</td><td class="num">$269.70 /t</td></tr><tr><td>÷ €1 = $1.1629</td><td class="num">€231.92 /t</td></tr><tr><td>Matif Dec</td><td class="num">€246.25 /t</td></tr><tr><td><strong>Matif over Chicago</strong></td><td class="num"><strong>€14.33 /t</strong></td></tr></tbody></table></div>
|
|
552
|
-
<p>Here is how it gets quoted on a desk:</p>
|
|
553
|
-
<blockquote><strong>TRADER:</strong> Where's Matif–Chicago December?<br><strong>BROKER:</strong> Fourteen and a third. Paris over.<br><strong>TRADER:</strong> It was under eight a fortnight ago.<br><strong>BROKER:</strong> It was. Chicago's done the moving, not us.<br><strong>TRADER:</strong> Show me thirty in Dec. Sell the premium.<br><strong>BROKER:</strong> Thirty, Paris over Chicago, working.</blockquote>
|
|
554
|
-
<p>Neither of them said whether wheat was going up or down. They quoted one number — the difference — and the trader sold it. He has no view on the wheat price. He has a view on whether Paris and Chicago move apart or together. That is relative value, and it is where physical desks live, because a physical desk very rarely has a flat-price opinion worth acting on.</p>
|
|
555
|
-
<h3 id="why-14-33-is-not-an-arbitrage">Why €14.33 is not an arbitrage<a class="anchor" href="#why-14-33-is-not-an-arbitrage" aria-label="Link to this section">#</a></h3>
|
|
556
|
-
<p>The instinct is to treat a gap that size as free money: buy the cheap market, sell the dear one, wait for convergence. Run it both directions and the instinct dies.</p>
|
|
557
|
-
<p><strong>Buy Chicago, sell Paris.</strong> To collect the €14.33 you would have to deliver wheat against the Matif contract. Matif delivers French milling wheat into French silos, against a specification — around 11 percent protein, a specific weight, a falling number. American soft red winter does not meet it, and it is on the wrong side of an ocean.</p>
|
|
558
|
-
<p><strong>Sell Chicago, buy Paris.</strong> Now you need French wheat sitting in a registered warehouse in the Toledo delivery territory. Same ocean, opposite direction, against a spread worth about $16.67 a tonne. Transatlantic freight alone is several times that before anyone has paid for elevation.</p>
|
|
559
|
-
<p>So no delivery mechanism forces these two prices together, in either direction. That is the structural difference between the three spreads in this episode:</p>
|
|
560
|
-
<ul><li>A <strong>calendar spread</strong> inside one contract is disciplined by delivery. Convergence is enforced.</li><li>An <strong>inter-commodity spread</strong> is disciplined by substitution. Feeders enforce it, eventually, with real demand.</li><li>An <strong>inter-exchange spread</strong> is disciplined by nothing but the habits of the people trading it. It can widen for six months for no nameable reason, and there is no date on which anyone is obliged to make it stop.</li></ul>
|
|
561
|
-
<p>The shape of the premium tells you what it is really pricing.</p>
|
|
562
|
-
<figure class="chartfig">
|
|
563
|
-
<figcaption class="charttitle">What Paris pays over Chicago</figcaption>
|
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564
|
-
<svg class="chart" viewBox="0 0 640 330" width="100%" preserveAspectRatio="xMidYMid meet" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" role="img">
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<style>.chart{--c-a:var(--accent,#1d4032);--c-b:var(--gold,#a8813c);--c-c:#4a6f8c;font-family:inherit}html[data-theme="dark"] .chart{--c-c:#7ba3c4}.chart .grid{stroke:var(--line,#ddd6c9);stroke-width:1}.chart .axis{fill:var(--ink-soft,#4a4238);font-size:12px}.chart .unit{fill:var(--ink-soft,#4a4238);font-size:11px;letter-spacing:.06em;text-transform:uppercase}.chart .ln{fill:none;stroke-width:2.25;stroke-linejoin:round;stroke-linecap:round}.chart .lg{fill:var(--ink,#16110c);font-size:12.5px}.chart .vlabel{fill:var(--ink,#16110c);font-size:11.5px;font-weight:600}@media (max-width:900px){.chart .axis{font-size:14px}.chart .unit{font-size:13px}.chart .lg{font-size:14.5px}.chart .vlabel{font-size:13.5px}.chart .ln{stroke-width:2.6}}@media (max-width:640px){.chart .axis{font-size:16px}.chart .unit{font-size:14px}.chart .lg{font-size:16px}.chart .vlabel{font-size:15px}.chart .ln{stroke-width:3.1}}</style>
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<line class="grid" x1="56" y1="286.0" x2="622" y2="286.0"/>
|
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<text class="axis" x="46" y="290.0" text-anchor="end">0</text>
|
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568
|
-
<line class="grid" x1="56" y1="199.3" x2="622" y2="199.3" opacity=".45"/>
|
|
569
|
-
<text class="axis" x="46" y="203.3" text-anchor="end">5</text>
|
|
570
|
-
<line class="grid" x1="56" y1="112.7" x2="622" y2="112.7" opacity=".45"/>
|
|
571
|
-
<text class="axis" x="46" y="116.7" text-anchor="end">10</text>
|
|
572
|
-
<line class="grid" x1="56" y1="26.0" x2="622" y2="26.0" opacity=".45"/>
|
|
573
|
-
<text class="axis" x="46" y="30.0" text-anchor="end">15</text>
|
|
574
|
-
<text class="unit" x="46" y="16" text-anchor="end">€/t</text>
|
|
575
|
-
<text class="axis" x="150.3" y="306" text-anchor="middle">Dec 26</text>
|
|
576
|
-
<text class="axis" x="339.0" y="306" text-anchor="middle">Mar 27</text>
|
|
577
|
-
<text class="axis" x="527.7" y="306" text-anchor="middle">May 27</text>
|
|
578
|
-
<rect x="130.1" y="37.6" width="40.5" height="248.4" rx="2" fill="var(--c-a)" opacity=".85"/>
|
|
579
|
-
<rect x="318.8" y="151.5" width="40.5" height="134.5" rx="2" fill="var(--c-a)" opacity=".85"/>
|
|
580
|
-
<rect x="507.4" y="196.9" width="40.5" height="89.1" rx="2" fill="var(--c-a)" opacity=".85"/>
|
|
581
|
-
<line class="grid" x1="56" y1="286.0" x2="622" y2="286.0"/>
|
|
582
|
-
</svg>
|
|
583
|
-
<figcaption class="chartcap">Fourteen euros in December, five by May. The premium is dated: it is a price for how long the market expects the Black Sea to stay broken, not a gap waiting to be arbitraged. <span class="chartsrc">Derived from CBOT and Euronext settlements of 4 September 2026, at 36.744 bu/t and EUR/USD 1.1629</span></figcaption>
|
|
584
|
-
</figure>
|
|
585
|
-
<h3 id="three-ways-a-spread-is-bigger-than-the-outright">Three ways a spread is bigger than the outright it replaced<a class="anchor" href="#three-ways-a-spread-is-bigger-than-the-outright" aria-label="Link to this section">#</a></h3>
|
|
586
|
-
<p>A spread sounds safer. Two legs, they offset, the market risk is out. On a desk it is how people lose more money than they ever lost on outrights, for three reasons that compound.</p>
|
|
587
|
-
<p><strong>One: the currency arrives free.</strong> Long Chicago and short Paris on 30,000 t is not two positions, it is three. The Chicago leg is worth about $8.1 million, denominated in dollars, and the book is in euros. Nobody sized that exposure or approved it. It came attached to the spread, and it does not show up on a wheat risk report. In the worked example above it took €166,800 of a €457,800 wheat profit.</p>
|
|
588
|
-
<p><strong>Two: the exchange helps you make it bigger.</strong> A recognised spread earns a margin credit, frequently 70 to 80 percent off the outright requirement. The same margin that carried a hundred lots outright carries four hundred lots of spread. Risk per tonne fell; tonnes rose by more. That is not risk reduction, it is leverage wearing a hedge's clothes — and it is granted automatically, by a clearing system, to a desk that believes it has just become more conservative.</p>
|
|
589
|
-
<p><strong>Three: the correlation is an assumption, not a contract.</strong> Chicago and Paris moved together through August because one story was driving both. Then Moscow zeroed its export duty — and Russian wheat competes with French wheat for North African business far more directly than it competes with American wheat. The story that made the two markets move together is precisely the story whose resolution pulls them apart.</p>
|
|
590
|
-
<p>That is the general form, and it is worth stating plainly: a spread is correlated right up until the moment it matters. The event that resolves the thesis is usually the same event that breaks the relationship the position depended on. Which is why the honest way to size a spread is not "these two legs offset" but "what do I lose if they stop offsetting on the day I find out I was right?"</p>
|
|
591
|
-
<section class="glossec"><h2 id="glossary">Glossary<a class="anchor" href="#glossary" aria-label="Link to this section">#</a></h2><p class="secnote">Every unit, convention and desk expression the show had introduced by episode 16. Nothing said in the audio should ever be unrecoverable.</p><details class="gloss"><summary>Open the glossary<span class="sl">257 terms</span></summary><div class="glossbody"><label class="gsearch"><span class="vh">Search the glossary</span><input type="search" id="gfilter" placeholder="Search terms…" autocomplete="off"></label><div class="gchips" role="group" aria-label="Filter by episode"><button type="button" class="gchip on" data-gep="all">All<span class="gn">257</span></button><button type="button" class="gchip" data-gep="1">Ep 1<span class="gn">37</span></button><button type="button" class="gchip" data-gep="2">Ep 2<span class="gn">15</span></button><button type="button" class="gchip" data-gep="3">Ep 3<span class="gn">11</span></button><button type="button" class="gchip" data-gep="4">Ep 4<span class="gn">13</span></button><button type="button" class="gchip" data-gep="5">Ep 5<span class="gn">12</span></button><button type="button" class="gchip" data-gep="6">Ep 6<span class="gn">13</span></button><button type="button" class="gchip" data-gep="7">Ep 7<span class="gn">14</span></button><button type="button" class="gchip" data-gep="8">Ep 8<span class="gn">16</span></button><button type="button" class="gchip" data-gep="9">Ep 9<span class="gn">18</span></button><button type="button" class="gchip" data-gep="10">Ep 10<span class="gn">18</span></button><button type="button" class="gchip" data-gep="11">Ep 11<span class="gn">18</span></button><button type="button" class="gchip" data-gep="12">Ep 12<span class="gn">15</span></button><button type="button" class="gchip" data-gep="13">Ep 13<span class="gn">17</span></button><button type="button" class="gchip" data-gep="14">Ep 14<span class="gn">17</span></button><button type="button" class="gchip" data-gep="15">Ep 15<span class="gn">13</span></button><button type="button" class="gchip" data-gep="16">Ep 16<span class="gn">10</span></button></div><dl id="glist"><div class="gterm" data-ep="8"><dt>45Z</dt><dd>the US clean fuel production credit, one of the two policy levers that sets American soybean oil demand <span class="gep">ep 8</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="6"><dt>abandonment</dt><dd>planted area never harvested for grain, lost to drought, flood or a switch to silage <span class="gep">ep 6</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="2"><dt>ABCD</dt><dd>the four historic majors, Archer Daniels Midland, Bunge, Cargill and Louis Dreyfus <span class="gep">ep 2</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="14"><dt>anhydrous ethanol</dt><dd>near-water-free ethanol blended into petrol under a mandate, taking 1.7651 kg of ATR per litre <span class="gep">ep 14</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="12"><dt>arabica</dt><dd>the high-altitude coffee species, aromatic and acidic, lower-yielding and more fragile, priced on ICE in New York <span class="gep">ep 12</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="2"><dt>arb</dt><dd>the full economics of moving a cargo, buy price plus freight and costs against the sale <span class="gep">ep 2</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="11"><dt>arb window</dt><dd>the period during which a route's economics work, opening and shutting on freight, differentials and FX rather than on flat price <span class="gep">ep 11</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="2"><dt>asset-heavy</dt><dd>owning the physical chain, which converts a volatile trading margin into a steadier toll <span class="gep">ep 2</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="2"><dt>asset-light</dt><dd>renting elevators, terminals and plants rather than owning them <span class="gep">ep 2</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="1"><dt>at</dt><dd>the small word that introduces the offer side (462 bid, at 462 and a half) <span class="gep">ep 1</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="14"><dt>ATR</dt><dd>Acucar Total Recuperavel or total recoverable sugar, the kilos of sugar recoverable from a tonne of cane, the unit in which Brazilian growers are paid and the unit in which a mill compares sugar against ethanol <span class="gep">ep 14</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="9"><dt>B50</dt><dd>a blending mandate requiring 50 percent biodiesel in the diesel pool, the level Indonesia moved to in 2026 <span class="gep">ep 9</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="1"><dt>bag (coffee)</dt><dd>60 kg, how the coffee trade counts volume <span class="gep">ep 1</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="7"><dt>balance sheet</dt><dd>the one-page supply and demand statement for one crop and one marketing year, built so that supply minus use equals ending stocks and the page closes <span class="gep">ep 7</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="15"><dt>bale</dt><dd>the standard unit of cotton statistics, 480 lb net in the United States, so one Cotton No. 2 lot is about 104 bales <span class="gep">ep 15</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="10"><dt>Baltic Dry Index (BDI)</dt><dd>the Baltic Exchange headline dry bulk freight index, a weighted composite of the Capesize, Panamax, Supramax and Handysize route assessments <span class="gep">ep 10</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="16"><dt>bear spread</dt><dd>a calendar position short the nearer month and long the deferred, which profits when the carry widens toward full carry <span class="gep now">ep 16</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="1"><dt>bid</dt><dd>the price a buyer will pay <span class="gep">ep 1</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="4"><dt>bill of lading</dt><dd>receipt, contract of carriage and document of title in one, whoever holds it owns the cargo <span class="gep">ep 4</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="9"><dt>biomass-based diesel</dt><dd>the RFS category covering biodiesel and renewable diesel made from fats and vegetable oils <span class="gep">ep 9</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="9"><dt>blend wall</dt><dd>the physical or warranty limit on how much conventional biodiesel an engine or fuel system will tolerate <span class="gep">ep 9</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="11"><dt>blending</dt><dd>combining lots of different quality so the weighted average meets a contract specification, creating value from material nobody else can use <span class="gep">ep 11</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="8"><dt>board crush</dt><dd>the processing margin implied purely by futures prices, meal price times 0.022 plus oil price times 0.11 minus the bean price, in dollars per bushel <span class="gep">ep 8</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="11"><dt>bottleneck asset</dt><dd>a facility with no near substitute at the moment it is needed, whose owner sets the price rather than quoting one <span class="gep">ep 11</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="16"><dt>bull spread</dt><dd>a calendar position long the nearer month and short the deferred, which profits when the carry narrows or the curve inverts <span class="gep now">ep 16</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="10"><dt>bunkers</dt><dd>the vessel's fuel, priced separately from the hire and carried by the owner on a voyage charter and by the charterer on a time charter <span class="gep">ep 10</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="1"><dt>bushel</dt><dd>volume measure standardized into weight, 60 lb for soybeans and wheat, 56 lb for corn <span class="gep">ep 1</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="1"><dt>bushels per tonne</dt><dd>about 36.7 for soybeans and wheat, 39.4 for corn <span class="gep">ep 1</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="13"><dt>buyer's call</dt><dd>a price-to-be-fixed contract in which the buyer holds the right to choose the moment of fixation <span class="gep">ep 13</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="3"><dt>calendar spread</dt><dd>the price difference between two months of the same contract, traded as one instrument at one price <span class="gep">ep 3</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="4"><dt>cancelling date</dt><dd>the last day of the laycan, after which the counterparty may cancel <span class="gep">ep 4</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="11"><dt>capacity utilisation</dt><dd>the share of storage capacity actually occupied, the best leading indicator of what harvest basis is about to do <span class="gep">ep 11</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="10"><dt>Capesize</dt><dd>a bulk carrier of about 180,000 dwt and up, too large for the Panama Canal, used mainly for iron ore and coal <span class="gep">ep 10</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="3"><dt>carry market (contango)</dt><dd>a curve with later months above nearer ones, the market pays for storage <span class="gep">ep 3</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="2"><dt>carry-in</dt><dd>stocks left over from the previous season, the starting point of a balance sheet <span class="gep">ep 2</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="7"><dt>carryout</dt><dd>ending stocks, the desk's one-word name for what is left at the end of the marketing year <span class="gep">ep 7</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="14"><dt>Center-South</dt><dd>the Brazilian sugarcane region running from Sao Paulo through Minas Gerais and Goias, about 90 percent of the national crop and the swing supplier of the world sugar market <span class="gep">ep 14</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="1"><dt>cents per bushel</dt><dd>Chicago grain quoting unit, 4.39 dollars per bushel is spoken four thirty-nine <span class="gep">ep 1</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="12"><dt>certified stock</dt><dd>coffee sampled, graded and stamped as deliverable against the futures contract and held in an exchange-licensed warehouse, the deliverable float rather than world inventory <span class="gep">ep 12</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="4"><dt>CFR</dt><dd>cost and freight, the seller pays the voyage to a named destination but risk still passes at loading <span class="gep">ep 4</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="4"><dt>charter party</dt><dd>the contract hiring the vessel, between charterer and shipowner <span class="gep">ep 4</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="4"><dt>CIF</dt><dd>cost insurance and freight, CFR plus the seller buys the marine insurance the buyer would claim on <span class="gep">ep 4</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="15"><dt>citrus greening</dt><dd>huanglongbing, the bacterial disease that permanently reduces an infected orange tree's yield and cannot be cured <span class="gep">ep 15</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="12"><dt>Coffee C (KC)</dt><dd>the ICE arabica futures contract, 37,500 lb quoted in US cents per pound with a 0.05 cent tick worth 18.75 dollars <span class="gep">ep 12</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="16"><dt>convergence</dt><dd>the pull of a futures price toward the cash value of its deliverable as delivery approaches, which disciplines a calendar spread and has no counterpart across two exchanges <span class="gep now">ep 16</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="8"><dt>conversion cost</dt><dd>the variable cost of turning beans into products, gas, power, hexane, labour and maintenance, typically 35 to 50 cents a bushel at a modern plant <span class="gep">ep 8</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="1"><dt>conversion factors</dt><dd>36.7 bushels per tonne for wheat and beans and 39.4 for corn, so cents per bushel times 0.367 or 0.394 gives dollars per tonne <span class="gep">ep 1</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="13"><dt>cooperative (co-op)</dt><dd>a grower-owned body that pools, mills and markets its members' coffee, and often the counterparty an exporter actually buys from <span class="gep">ep 13</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="15"><dt>Cotton No. 2</dt><dd>the ICE cotton futures contract, 50,000 lb net weight quoted in US cents per pound, worth 500 dollars a cent and 5 dollars a point <span class="gep">ep 15</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="15"><dt>cotton on-call report</dt><dd>the weekly CFTC publication of unfixed on-call sales and purchases by futures month, read as a map of forced order flow rather than as a price forecast <span class="gep">ep 15</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="11"><dt>country elevator</dt><dd>the first commercial storage point off the farm, buying from growers and shipping onward by truck, rail or barge <span class="gep">ep 11</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="9"><dt>CPO</dt><dd>crude palm oil, the unrefined oil pressed from the fruit of the oil palm and the benchmark grade traded internationally <span class="gep">ep 9</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="7"><dt>Crop Production</dt><dd>the USDA report published alongside WASDE carrying the survey-based yield and area figures <span class="gep">ep 7</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="5"><dt>cross-hedge</dt><dd>hedging with a contract that is not your grade or your origin, which removes flat price and adds correlation risk <span class="gep">ep 5</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="8"><dt>crush capacity</dt><dd>installed daily processing volume, a physical constraint that cannot be expanded inside a marketing year <span class="gep">ep 8</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="1"><dt>cwt</dt><dd>hundredweight, 100 lb, the quoting unit for US rice and cattle <span class="gep">ep 1</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="1"><dt>cwt (hundredweight)</dt><dd>100 lb, the quoting unit for US rice <span class="gep">ep 1</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="15"><dt>days to liquidate</dt><dd>a position divided by honest daily volume, the sizing measure that replaces a notional limit in a thin market <span class="gep">ep 15</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="10"><dt>deadweight (dwt)</dt><dd>the total weight a vessel can carry including cargo, fuel, water, stores and crew, so always more than the cargo she can load <span class="gep">ep 10</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="3"><dt>Dec over</dt><dd>spread quoting convention that names the expensive leg, December fifteen over means December is 15 cents above the other month <span class="gep">ep 3</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="12"><dt>defect count</dt><dd>the number of black, broken, insect-damaged or foreign items in a fixed sample weight, the primary coffee grading measure <span class="gep">ep 12</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="1"><dt>deferred</dt><dd>months or shipment windows further out <span class="gep">ep 1</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="12"><dt>deliverable float</dt><dd>the quantity actually available to settle a futures delivery, which sets how far a front month can travel regardless of world supply <span class="gep">ep 12</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="12"><dt>deliverable origin differential</dt><dd>the fixed premium or discount the contract assigns to each approved origin, unchanged whatever the physical market does <span class="gep">ep 12</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="12"><dt>delivery notice period</dt><dd>the window in which shorts may tender certified stock against the expiring contract <span class="gep">ep 12</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="10"><dt>demand-to-supply ratio</dt><dd>the Baltic measure of tonne-mile demand growth against fleet growth, above 1.0 when cargo is outrunning ships <span class="gep">ep 10</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="2"><dt>demurrage</dt><dd>the penalty owed when a vessel is held beyond the agreed laytime <span class="gep">ep 2</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="4"><dt>despatch</dt><dd>the reward paid when loading beats laytime, customarily half the demurrage rate <span class="gep">ep 4</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="14"><dt>destination refinery</dt><dd>a standalone refinery at the consuming end that buys raws on the water and sells whites locally, earning the white premium less its costs rather than a crop margin <span class="gep">ep 14</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="1"><dt>differential</dt><dd>the premium or discount to a named futures month, as in November plus 80, the negotiated part of a physical quote <span class="gep">ep 1</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="1"><dt>differential (basis)</dt><dd>the premium or discount to a named futures month, quoted as plus 80 or minus 20 <span class="gep">ep 1</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="11"><dt>discount schedule</dt><dd>the published table of price deductions for grain outside a contract's grade limits, and the raw material of every blending trade <span class="gep">ep 11</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="9"><dt>discretionary blending</dt><dd>blending vegetable oil into the fuel pool purely because it is cheaper than gasoil, with no mandate and no subsidy behind it <span class="gep">ep 9</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="6"><dt>distillers grains</dt><dd>DDGS, the protein co-product of ethanol production, sold back into the feed market <span class="gep">ep 6</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="1"><dt>done</dt><dd>the word that seals a trade <span class="gep">ep 1</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="10"><dt>draft</dt><dd>the depth of hull below the waterline, which rises as the ship loads and is the hard physical limit on which berths and rivers a vessel can enter <span class="gep">ep 10</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="4"><dt>draft survey</dt><dd>weighing a cargo by reading the ship's displacement before and after loading <span class="gep">ep 4</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="8"><dt>draw area</dt><dd>the geographic catchment a crush plant buys its beans from, whose size sets how hard it must bid the local basis <span class="gep">ep 8</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="5"><dt>durum</dt><dd>the pasta wheat, a separate species with its own thin market <span class="gep">ep 5</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="11"><dt>elevation margin</dt><dd>the toll an elevator earns for taking grain in, conditioning it and loading it out, separate from any gain on the basis <span class="gep">ep 11</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="6"><dt>ethanol grind</dt><dd>the rate at which ethanol plants consume corn, which slows when the plant margin turns negative and removes corn demand in steps <span class="gep">ep 6</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="14"><dt>ethanol parity</dt><dd>the sugar price at which a mill earns the same per unit of ATR from sugar as from ethanol, the level at which its production decision flips <span class="gep">ep 14</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="13"><dt>EUDR</dt><dd>the EU deforestation regulation, which from December 2026 requires proof that a shipment's land was not deforested and which splits origin differentials into compliant and non-compliant <span class="gep">ep 13</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="9"><dt>export levy</dt><dd>a tax charged on a commodity leaving the country, used in Indonesia both to discourage exports of crude palm oil and to fund the domestic blending subsidy <span class="gep">ep 9</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="5"><dt>falling number</dt><dd>the sprout-damage test, a low number demotes milling wheat to feed wheat <span class="gep">ep 5</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="9"><dt>FAME</dt><dd>fatty acid methyl ester, the chemical name for conventional biodiesel made by reacting a vegetable oil with methanol <span class="gep">ep 9</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="13"><dt>farmgate price</dt><dd>what the grower is actually paid at the farm, after the intermediary's margin and inland costs are taken out of the export value <span class="gep">ep 13</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="15"><dt>FCOJ-A</dt><dd>the ICE frozen concentrated orange juice contract, 15,000 lb of orange solids quoted in US cents per pound <span class="gep">ep 15</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="9"><dt>FCPO</dt><dd>the Bursa Malaysia Derivatives crude palm oil futures contract, 25 tonnes per lot, quoted in Malaysian ringgit per tonne with a one ringgit tick <span class="gep">ep 9</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="7"><dt>feed and residual</dt><dd>the inferred demand line that carries livestock feeding together with every measurement error in the rest of the sheet <span class="gep">ep 7</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="6"><dt>feed floor</dt><dd>the price at which feed substitution demand appears under a grain, corn setting the floor under feed wheat <span class="gep">ep 6</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="6"><dt>feed wheat</dt><dd>wheat sold on energy and protein rather than milling specification, priced relationally against corn rather than at a flat price <span class="gep">ep 6</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="1"><dt>firm</dt><dd>a tradable quote that binds if accepted, often with a time limit <span class="gep">ep 1</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="13"><dt>first notice day</dt><dd>the first day on which a short futures position may be tendered for delivery, and the practical deadline for rolling a hedge <span class="gep">ep 13</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="1"><dt>five percent more or less</dt><dd>the contractual tolerance on cargo size, exercised at the seller's option <span class="gep">ep 1</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="13"><dt>fixation</dt><dd>the act of setting the futures leg of a price-to-be-fixed contract, which converts a differential into a flat price <span class="gep">ep 13</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="13"><dt>fixation window</dt><dd>the period inside which the fixing party must declare, normally ending before the referenced contract's notice period <span class="gep">ep 13</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="10"><dt>fixing</dt><dd>agreeing the charter of a specific vessel, the moment a freight exposure stops being open <span class="gep">ep 10</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="13"><dt>fixing risk</dt><dd>the exposure created by the gap between agreeing a differential and setting the price, carried as market risk by the fixing party and as credit risk by the other <span class="gep">ep 13</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="1"><dt>flat price</dt><dd>the full outright price level <span class="gep">ep 1</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="2"><dt>flat price exposure</dt><dd>outright price risk, removed deliberately by hedging so only the basis remains <span class="gep">ep 2</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="2"><dt>FOB</dt><dd>free on board, the cargo is priced at the load port with the buyer taking it from the ship's rail <span class="gep">ep 2</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="10"><dt>forward freight agreement (FFA)</dt><dd>a cash-settled swap on a Baltic index route or basket over a calendar month, the only liquid way to hedge freight <span class="gep">ep 10</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="3"><dt>front month</dt><dd>the nearest actively traded contract month, where liquidity is deepest <span class="gep">ep 3</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="3"><dt>full carry</dt><dd>storage plus interest per month of holding grain, the practical ceiling on a carry spread <span class="gep">ep 3</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="16"><dt>FX leg</dt><dd>the currency exposure that arrives unbidden in an inter-exchange spread whose two legs settle in different currencies <span class="gep now">ep 16</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="9"><dt>gasoil</dt><dd>the traded middle distillate that diesel prices off, and the reference against which discretionary blending economics are judged <span class="gep">ep 9</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="10"><dt>geared vessel</dt><dd>a ship carrying its own cranes, which can therefore discharge at a berth with no shore equipment <span class="gep">ep 10</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="12"><dt>grading</dt><dd>the exchange pass-fail examination of a sample covering defect count, screen size and a clean cup <span class="gep">ep 12</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="7"><dt>Grain Stocks</dt><dd>the quarterly USDA survey of physical inventories, from which the feed and residual line is backed out <span class="gep">ep 7</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="13"><dt>green coffee</dt><dd>unroasted milled coffee beans, the form in which all internationally traded coffee moves <span class="gep">ep 13</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="8"><dt>gross processing margin</dt><dd>the industry name for product value minus raw material cost, the crush stated as a margin <span class="gep">ep 8</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="10"><dt>Handysize</dt><dd>the smallest mainstream dry bulk class at roughly 10,000 to 40,000 dwt, geared and able to work berths larger ships cannot reach <span class="gep">ep 10</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="5"><dt>hard red spring (HRS)</dt><dd>the 13.5 percent plus Minneapolis wheat bought to lift the protein of a grist <span class="gep">ep 5</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="5"><dt>hard red winter (HRW)</dt><dd>the 11 to 12.5 percent bread wheat priced at Kansas City, the US wheat that competes with the Black Sea <span class="gep">ep 5</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="11"><dt>harvest basis</dt><dd>the seasonal low in the cash-minus-futures spread, set when a year of crop arrives in six weeks into a pipe sized to move it over twelve months <span class="gep">ep 11</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="6"><dt>harvested acres</dt><dd>area actually cut for grain, roughly 8 million acres below planted for US corn, and the denominator that yield is quoted against <span class="gep">ep 6</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="8"><dt>hexane</dt><dd>the solvent used to extract the last of the oil from the flaked bean, and a real line in the conversion cost <span class="gep">ep 8</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="1"><dt>hit</dt><dd>your bid was taken by a seller <span class="gep">ep 1</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="1"><dt>hit the bid</dt><dd>to sell into someone else's bid <span class="gep">ep 1</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="14"><dt>hydrous ethanol</dt><dd>roughly 95 percent ethanol sold directly at the pump for flex-fuel cars in Brazil, taking 1.6913 kg of ATR per litre <span class="gep">ep 14</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="14"><dt>ICUMSA</dt><dd>the colour scale for refined sugar, lower being whiter, with the London No. 5 contract requiring 45 ICUMSA or better <span class="gep">ep 14</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="7"><dt>implied disappearance</dt><dd>use derived by subtraction rather than by measurement, the technique that produces the residual lines of a balance sheet <span class="gep">ep 7</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="6"><dt>inclusion rate</dt><dd>the share of a single ingredient in a feed ration, capped by nutrition and by anti-nutritional factors <span class="gep">ep 6</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="4"><dt>Incoterms</dt><dd>the standard three-letter trade terms that allocate cost and risk between buyer and seller <span class="gep">ep 4</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="1"><dt>indication</dt><dd>a guide price that is not firm <span class="gep">ep 1</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="3"><dt>initial margin</dt><dd>the deposit the clearing house takes per lot when a position is opened <span class="gep">ep 3</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="5"><dt>inter-exchange spread</dt><dd>the price gap between two exchanges pricing related but different goods, such as Kansas City over Chicago <span class="gep">ep 5</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="3"><dt>inverse (backwardation)</dt><dd>a curve with nearer months above later ones, the market pays a premium for immediate delivery <span class="gep">ep 3</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="8"><dt>joint product</dt><dd>two outputs produced in fixed proportion from one input, so that neither can be made without the other <span class="gep">ep 8</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="9"><dt>kilolitre</dt><dd>one thousand litres, the volume unit Asian governments state biofuel mandates in, converted to tonnes using the fuel's density of about 0.88 t per cubic metre for biodiesel <span class="gep">ep 9</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="1"><dt>laycan</dt><dd>the window during which a vessel may present for loading <span class="gep">ep 1</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="4"><dt>laytime</dt><dd>the contractually allowed time to load or discharge before demurrage begins <span class="gep">ep 4</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="16"><dt>leg</dt><dd>one of the individual contracts making up a spread, each executed and margined in its own right <span class="gep now">ep 16</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="16"><dt>legging in</dt><dd>executing a spread one leg at a time rather than as a single spread order, accepting outright exposure in between in exchange for a better fill <span class="gep now">ep 16</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="12"><dt>licensed warehouse</dt><dd>a storage facility the exchange approves to hold deliverable stock, at named ports only <span class="gep">ep 12</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="1"><dt>lift the offer</dt><dd>to buy from someone else's offer <span class="gep">ep 1</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="1"><dt>lifted</dt><dd>your offer was taken by a buyer <span class="gep">ep 1</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="3"><dt>limit move</dt><dd>an exchange-set maximum daily price change, trading pauses beyond it <span class="gep">ep 3</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="2"><dt>line-up</dt><dd>the queue of vessels waiting to load at a port, a key driver of origin basis <span class="gep">ep 2</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="11"><dt>load-out capacity</dt><dd>how fast an elevator can ship grain out, the lever that decides whether a full house is a crisis or a rotation <span class="gep">ep 11</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="14"><dt>long ton</dt><dd>2,240 lb, the imperial weight unit the sugar No. 11 contract is still sized in at 50 long tons a lot <span class="gep">ep 14</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="1"><dt>lot</dt><dd>one futures contract, 5,000 bushels for Chicago grains, the unit desks count positions in <span class="gep">ep 1</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="13"><dt>managed money</dt><dd>speculative funds reported as non-commercial in exchange positioning data, which trade direction rather than physical <span class="gep">ep 13</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="15"><dt>market depth</dt><dd>the quantity resting on the book near the touch, which is what determines execution cost rather than headline volume <span class="gep">ep 15</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="7"><dt>marketing year</dt><dd>the accounting year a crop is measured in, September to August for US corn and soybeans and June to May for US wheat <span class="gep">ep 7</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="5"><dt>Matif milling wheat (EBM)</dt><dd>the Paris contract, 50 tonnes a lot quoted in euros per tonne and delivered into Rouen and Dunkirk <span class="gep">ep 5</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="8"><dt>meal contract</dt><dd>CBOT soybean meal, 100 short tons, quoted in dollars per short ton <span class="gep">ep 8</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="14"><dt>melt loss</dt><dd>the sugar lost between raws in and whites out, roughly six percent, which makes a refiner's break-even white premium a function of the raw price rather than a constant <span class="gep">ep 14</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="1"><dt>metric tonne</dt><dd>2,204.6 lb, the grain trading weight unit outside the US <span class="gep">ep 1</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="1"><dt>month codes</dt><dd>F G H J K M N Q U V X Z for January through December, the Z is December <span class="gep">ep 1</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="7"><dt>NASS</dt><dd>USDA's National Agricultural Statistics Service, the body running the surveys behind the published numbers <span class="gep">ep 7</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="12"><dt>natural process</dt><dd>coffee dried with the fruit still attached, giving a sweeter, heavier and more variable cup <span class="gep">ep 12</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="13"><dt>net length</dt><dd>a fund category's long positions less its short positions, the number that says how much of a rally is positioning <span class="gep">ep 13</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="7"><dt>new crop</dt><dd>the marketing year about to begin, priced by the contract months that follow the coming harvest <span class="gep">ep 7</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="14"><dt>No. 11</dt><dd>the ICE raw cane sugar futures contract, 112,000 lb quoted in US cents per pound FOB at origin, and the world price of raw sugar <span class="gep">ep 14</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="14"><dt>No. 5</dt><dd>the ICE London white sugar futures contract, 50 tonnes quoted in US dollars per tonne delivered, and the world price of refined sugar <span class="gep">ep 14</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="4"><dt>nomination</dt><dd>formally naming the performing vessel under a cargo contract <span class="gep">ep 4</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="8"><dt>NOPA</dt><dd>the National Oilseed Processors Association, whose monthly published crush figure makes US soybean crush a measured line rather than an inferred one <span class="gep">ep 8</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="4"><dt>notice of readiness (NOR)</dt><dd>the master's formal declaration that the vessel has arrived and is ready, it starts the laytime clock <span class="gep">ep 4</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="1"><dt>offer</dt><dd>the price a seller will accept <span class="gep">ep 1</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="8"><dt>oil contract</dt><dd>CBOT soybean oil, 60,000 pounds, quoted in cents per pound <span class="gep">ep 8</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="8"><dt>oil share</dt><dd>soybean oil's percentage of the combined value of the meal and oil produced from one bushel <span class="gep">ep 8</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="9"><dt>oil share trade</dt><dd>long soybean oil against short soybean meal, the clean expression of a view on a fuel policy because it isolates relative product value from the bean basis <span class="gep">ep 9</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="7"><dt>old crop</dt><dd>the marketing year now ending, priced by the contract months before the new harvest arrives <span class="gep">ep 7</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="9"><dt>olein and stearin</dt><dd>the liquid and solid fractions palm separates into when refined, sold into cooking oil and into fats respectively <span class="gep">ep 9</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="15"><dt>on-call purchase</dt><dd>cotton bought by a merchant from a grower with the futures leg left for the seller to fix later, which makes it latent futures selling <span class="gep">ep 15</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="15"><dt>on-call sale</dt><dd>cotton sold by a merchant to a mill at an agreed differential with the futures leg left for the buyer to fix later, which makes it latent futures buying <span class="gep">ep 15</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="13"><dt>outright</dt><dd>a contract agreed at a flat price rather than as a differential, with no fixation to come <span class="gep">ep 13</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="10"><dt>P7 and P8</dt><dd>Baltic Panamax route codes for US Gulf to Qingdao and Santos to Qingdao, the two assessments that set the soybean origin arb <span class="gep">ep 10</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="10"><dt>Panamax and Kamsarmax</dt><dd>the 75,000 to 82,000 dwt workhorse of the grain and coal trades, usually gearless and drawing about fourteen metres fully loaded <span class="gep">ep 10</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="2"><dt>paper</dt><dd>exchange futures and options, used by a physical desk to hedge rather than to speculate <span class="gep">ep 2</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="10"><dt>part cargo</dt><dd>loading a vessel below capacity because the berth, river or canal cannot take her full draft <span class="gep">ep 10</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="11"><dt>pass-fail specification</dt><dd>a contract term that cannot be met on average, such as contamination, infestation or an unapproved genetic event, where blending increases the affected tonnage instead of diluting it <span class="gep">ep 11</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="16"><dt>percent of full carry</dt><dd>a calendar spread expressed as a fraction of the interest and storage cost of holding the grain to the later month, the standard way a desk reads how badly a market wants storage <span class="gep now">ep 16</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="2"><dt>physical (cash)</dt><dd>real cargoes under contract with specs and load windows, as opposed to paper <span class="gep">ep 2</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="8"><dt>plant crush</dt><dd>what a physical plant actually earns, the board crush adjusted for bean, meal and oil basis and net of conversion cost <span class="gep">ep 8</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="6"><dt>planted acres</dt><dd>area sown, the number that moves on farmer decisions and USDA area surveys <span class="gep">ep 6</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="1"><dt>point</dt><dd>one hundredth of a cent per pound, how softs desks count moves <span class="gep">ep 1</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="1"><dt>point (softs)</dt><dd>one hundredth of a cent per pound, so up 300 points means up 3 cents <span class="gep">ep 1</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="14"><dt>polarisation (pol)</dt><dd>the sucrose purity of a sugar measured by the rotation of polarised light and expressed in degrees, the basis on which raw sugar is priced and settled <span class="gep">ep 14</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="6"><dt>pollination</dt><dd>the roughly one-week corn window in mid-July in the northern hemisphere after which the ear count is fixed and no forecast can change it <span class="gep">ep 6</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="5"><dt>price assessment</dt><dd>a published daily price built by surveying brokers and exporters, used where no futures contract exists <span class="gep">ep 5</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="13"><dt>price-to-be-fixed (PTBF)</dt><dd>a physical contract where quantity, quality, shipment and differential are agreed now and the futures price is set later <span class="gep">ep 13</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="1"><dt>prompt</dt><dd>the nearby month or shipment window, ready to move now <span class="gep">ep 1</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="5"><dt>protein spec</dt><dd>the contractual protein percentage that turns the word wheat into a price <span class="gep">ep 5</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="8"><dt>putting on the crush</dt><dd>buying bean futures and selling meal and oil futures against them in a 10-11-9 lot ratio, which fixes the processing margin <span class="gep">ep 8</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="5"><dt>quality basis</dt><dd>the spread between the grade you own and the grade the futures contract delivers <span class="gep">ep 5</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="6"><dt>ration</dt><dd>the formulated feed mix a mill grinds, in which every ingredient carries an inclusion limit and a substitution price against the others <span class="gep">ep 6</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="14"><dt>raws</dt><dd>raw cane sugar, the crystalline product a cane mill exports before refining, traded at 96 degrees polarisation <span class="gep">ep 14</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="11"><dt>receiving capacity</dt><dd>how fast an elevator can take grain in, in bushels or tonnes per hour, a different constraint from how much it can hold <span class="gep">ep 11</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="16"><dt>relative value</dt><dd>a position expressing a view on the difference between two prices rather than on the direction of either <span class="gep now">ep 16</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="9"><dt>renewable diesel</dt><dd>hydrotreated vegetable oil or HVO, a drop-in diesel chemically identical to fossil diesel and not limited by a blend wall, unlike FAME <span class="gep">ep 9</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="11"><dt>replacement value</dt><dd>what it would cost to buy back today what you have just sold, the test of whether a price was genuinely good <span class="gep">ep 11</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="2"><dt>residual</dt><dd>a figure obtained by subtraction, such as ending stocks, which absorbs any error in the larger numbers almost in full <span class="gep">ep 2</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="13"><dt>retracement</dt><dd>the partial give-back of a price move once the fear that produced it fails to be confirmed <span class="gep">ep 13</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="8"><dt>reverse crush</dt><dd>the opposite position, short beans and long products, used when a processor expects to idle capacity rather than run it <span class="gep">ep 8</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="9"><dt>RFS</dt><dd>the US Renewable Fuel Standard, the rule that sets annual minimum volumes of renewable fuel that must be blended into American transport fuel <span class="gep">ep 9</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="9"><dt>RIN</dt><dd>renewable identification number, the tradable compliance certificate generated with each gallon of renewable fuel, at 1.5 RINs per gallon of biodiesel, which is why a mandate volume must be checked for basis before it is multiplied by a feedstock factor <span class="gep">ep 9</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="10"><dt>river-sea vessel</dt><dd>a small shallow-draft ship built to work both inland waterways and short sea legs, the only class able to load in the Sea of Azov <span class="gep">ep 10</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="12"><dt>robusta</dt><dd>the low-altitude coffee species, hardier and higher-yielding, about double the caffeine and a flatter cup, priced in London <span class="gep">ep 12</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="12"><dt>robusta contract (RC)</dt><dd>the London robusta futures contract, 10 tonnes quoted in dollars per tonne with a one dollar tick worth 10 dollars <span class="gep">ep 12</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="3"><dt>roll</dt><dd>closing a hedge in one month and reopening it further out, executed as a spread trade <span class="gep">ep 3</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="13"><dt>roll cost</dt><dd>the gain or loss from moving a hedge to a later month, equal to the spread between the two months and negative for a short hedge in an inverted market <span class="gep">ep 13</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="15"><dt>rough rice contract</dt><dd>the CBOT rice future, 2,000 hundredweight of long grain rough rice quoted in US dollars per hundredweight <span class="gep">ep 15</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="8"><dt>run rate</dt><dd>the share of installed capacity a plant is actually operating at, the lever a crusher pulls when margins move <span class="gep">ep 8</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="9"><dt>RVO</dt><dd>renewable volume obligation, the share of the national mandate assigned to an individual refiner or importer <span class="gep">ep 9</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="6"><dt>safrinha</dt><dd>Brazil's second corn crop, planted February to March into soybean stubble and pollinating April to May, about three quarters of Brazilian corn production <span class="gep">ep 6</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="12"><dt>screen size</dt><dd>bean size measured by the mesh it will not fall through, part of the deliverable specification <span class="gep">ep 12</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="13"><dt>Section 301</dt><dd>the US statute under which country-specific tariffs are imposed after a trade-practice investigation, applied to Brazilian goods from 22 July 2026 with coffee exempt <span class="gep">ep 13</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="11"><dt>segregation</dt><dd>keeping identities and grades physically apart in separate bins, the precondition for being able to blend deliberately later <span class="gep">ep 11</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="13"><dt>seller's call</dt><dd>a price-to-be-fixed contract in which the seller holds the right to choose the moment of fixation <span class="gep">ep 13</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="1"><dt>short ton</dt><dd>2,000 lb, used by US soybean meal, about 10 percent lighter than a metric tonne <span class="gep">ep 1</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="11"><dt>shrink</dt><dd>weight lost when grain is dried to a safe keeping moisture, deducted as a percentage and a real cost to whoever owns the grain <span class="gep">ep 11</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="5"><dt>soft red winter (SRW)</dt><dd>the low-protein soft wheat the Chicago contract delivers, used for cakes biscuits and crackers <span class="gep">ep 5</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="12"><dt>soluble solids</dt><dd>the share of the coffee bean that dissolves in water, higher in robusta, which is why robusta dominates instant coffee <span class="gep">ep 12</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="2"><dt>space time form</dt><dd>the three transformations a merchant is paid for, geography, storage and processing <span class="gep">ep 2</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="16"><dt>spread margin credit</dt><dd>the reduction in initial margin an exchange grants a recognised spread, which lowers the cost of a position without lowering its risk per tonne <span class="gep now">ep 16</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="9"><dt>standing bid</dt><dd>demand that is present regardless of price because it is created by legal obligation rather than by choice <span class="gep">ep 9</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="15"><dt>state reserve auction</dt><dd>a government selling cotton or grain from its own stockpile into its domestic market, whose clearing rate is read as a signal of domestic tightness <span class="gep">ep 15</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="4"><dt>statement of facts</dt><dd>the port log of events both sides use to fight laytime claims <span class="gep">ep 4</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="2"><dt>stocks-to-use</dt><dd>ending stocks divided by total use, the market's tension gauge <span class="gep">ep 2</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="11"><dt>storage tariff</dt><dd>the published charge for commercial storage, quoted in cents per bushel per month or per day, or in dollars per tonne per month <span class="gep">ep 11</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="9"><dt>substitution spread</dt><dd>the price gap between two competing vegetable oils, which sets the point at which a refiner reformulates from one to the other <span class="gep">ep 9</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="14"><dt>sugar mix</dt><dd>the share of a mill's recoverable sugars turned into sugar rather than ethanol, bounded above by the plant's crystallisation capacity <span class="gep">ep 14</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="10"><dt>Supramax</dt><dd>a dry bulk vessel of roughly 50,000 to 60,000 dwt, normally carrying its own cranes, working minor bulks and shorter legs <span class="gep">ep 10</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="11"><dt>temporary storage</dt><dd>ground piles, bunkers and bags used when permanent capacity is full, cheap per bushel to build and expensive per bushel in spoilage and rehandling <span class="gep">ep 11</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="11"><dt>terminal elevator</dt><dd>large storage at a port, river or rail hub whose business is blending, load-out speed and access rather than farm origination <span class="gep">ep 11</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="5"><dt>test weight</dt><dd>the density measure telling a miller how much flour comes out of a tonne <span class="gep">ep 5</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="15"><dt>thin market</dt><dd>a market in which the price obtainable depends materially on the size being traded, whatever a single lot is worth in notional terms <span class="gep">ep 15</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="11"><dt>throughput</dt><dd>the volume moved through a facility in a period, the number that actually pays for a fixed asset because capacity earns nothing standing still <span class="gep">ep 11</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="1"><dt>tick</dt><dd>smallest price increment, a quarter cent per bushel in Chicago grains, worth 12.50 dollars per lot <span class="gep">ep 1</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="3"><dt>ticker</dt><dd>the short screen code a contract is spoken by, ZW wheat, ZC corn, ZS soybeans, ZM meal, ZL oil, KC coffee, SB sugar, CT cotton <span class="gep">ep 3</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="10"><dt>time charter</dt><dd>hiring the vessel itself for a period at a price in dollars per day, with the charterer taking speed, weather, port delay and usually fuel <span class="gep">ep 10</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="10"><dt>time charter equivalent (TCE)</dt><dd>a voyage's economics restated as dollars per day, which is how a shipowner compares one employment against another <span class="gep">ep 10</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="14"><dt>toll refining</dt><dd>refining someone else's raws for a fee per tonne, which converts the white premium from a trading position into a fixed margin <span class="gep">ep 14</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="7"><dt>total supply</dt><dd>carry-in plus production plus imports, the top block of a balance sheet <span class="gep">ep 7</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="7"><dt>total use</dt><dd>domestic use plus exports, the bottom block of a balance sheet <span class="gep">ep 7</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="7"><dt>trade average</dt><dd>the published mean of analysts' pre-report estimates, and therefore the expectation already contained in the price <span class="gep">ep 7</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="6"><dt>trend yield</dt><dd>the yield a crop would produce on normal weather, the baseline against which a weather premium is measured <span class="gep">ep 6</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="15"><dt>unfixed</dt><dd>the state of a price-to-be-fixed contract whose futures leg has not yet been set, so the exposure is still outright <span class="gep">ep 15</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="3"><dt>variation margin</dt><dd>the daily cash settlement of a position mark to market, paid the same day <span class="gep">ep 3</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="14"><dt>VHP</dt><dd>very high polarisation raw sugar of around 99 degrees, the grade Brazil exports and which trades at a premium to the No. 11 screen <span class="gep">ep 14</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="10"><dt>voyage charter</dt><dd>hiring a vessel to move a stated cargo between named ports for a price in dollars per tonne, with the owner carrying the voyage and delay risk <span class="gep">ep 10</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="2"><dt>war-risk premium</dt><dd>an insurance surcharge on a vessel's hull value for sailing into a conflict zone, quoted as a percentage <span class="gep">ep 2</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="1"><dt>WASDE</dt><dd>the USDA monthly World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates report <span class="gep">ep 1</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="1"><dt>washed out</dt><dd>offsetting trades cancel each other and only the price difference is settled <span class="gep">ep 1</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="12"><dt>washed process</dt><dd>coffee with the fruit stripped off before drying, giving a cleaner and more consistent cup <span class="gep">ep 12</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="1"><dt>washout</dt><dd>cancelling two offsetting physical contracts by settling the price difference instead of shipping <span class="gep">ep 1</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="6"><dt>weather premium</dt><dd>the gap between where a crop trades and where it would trade at trend yield, the price of a distribution of outcomes rather than of a forecast <span class="gep">ep 6</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="4"><dt>weather working day</dt><dd>a laytime day that counts only when weather permits cargo work <span class="gep">ep 4</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="16"><dt>wheat-corn spread</dt><dd>the price difference between wheat and corn futures, read as the distance wheat must still fall before feeders substitute it into a ration <span class="gep now">ep 16</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="7"><dt>whisper number</dt><dd>the expectation the market is actually trading into a report, which can sit away from the published trade average <span class="gep">ep 7</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="14"><dt>white premium</dt><dd>the London white sugar price less the New York raw sugar price converted to the same unit, which is what the market pays for the act of refining <span class="gep">ep 14</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="1"><dt>work</dt><dd>leave an order resting with a broker <span class="gep">ep 1</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="1"><dt>work an order</dt><dd>leave an order resting at your price and wait <span class="gep">ep 1</span></dd></div><div class="gterm" data-ep="1"><dt>workable</dt><dd>the quoted price is negotiable <span class="gep">ep 1</span></dd></div></dl><p class="gnone" hidden>No term matches that.</p></div></details></section>
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<a class="epprev" href="ep15.html"><span class="dir">← Previous</span><span class="ept">Cotton, Rice and Juice</span><span class="epn">Episode 15</span></a>
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<details class="archive"><summary>All episodes<span class="sl">16 so far</span></summary><ol class="arclist"><li><a href="ep01.html"><b>01</b> The Units and the Language of the Desk</a></li><li><a href="ep02.html"><b>02</b> What a Merchant Does, and Why Basis Is the Whole Game</a></li><li><a href="ep03.html"><b>03</b> Futures Plumbing and the Shape of the Curve</a></li><li><a href="ep04.html"><b>04</b> The Physical Chain, End to End</a></li><li><a href="ep05.html"><b>05</b> Wheat: The Map and the Screens</a></li><li><a href="ep06.html"><b>06</b> Corn, Crop Calendars and Weather Risk</a></li><li><a href="ep07.html"><b>07</b> WASDE and Building a Balance Sheet</a></li><li><a href="ep08.html"><b>08</b> The Soybean Complex and the Crush</a></li><li><a href="ep09.html"><b>09</b> Vegetable oils and biofuels</a></li><li><a href="ep10.html"><b>10</b> Freight: Dry Bulk and Chartering</a></li><li><a href="ep11.html"><b>11</b> Storage, Elevation and Trade Flows</a></li><li><a href="ep12.html"><b>12</b> Coffee: The Market</a></li><li><a href="ep13.html"><b>13</b> Coffee: Differentials, PTBF and Volatility</a></li><li><a href="ep14.html"><b>14</b> Sugar: Two Contracts, the Switch and the Refiner</a></li><li><a href="ep15.html"><b>15</b> Cotton, Rice and Juice</a></li><li class="here" aria-current="page"><a href="ep16.html"><b>16</b> Spreads: Calendar, Inter-Commodity, Inter-Exchange</a></li></ol></details>
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<span class="sig"><b>Soft Commodity Trading</b> — a daily briefing on physical commodity trading.</span>
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