@sdelsad/commodity-desk-daily 1.0.8 → 1.0.9

package/covered.md

@@ -2,5 +2,5 @@
 
 Running log. Read before writing a new episode: avoid repeating material, and only make callbacks to episodes listed here.
 
-- **Ep 1** (Mon) — *The Units and the Language of the Desk*: Units and desk-language primer: bushel as volume (60 lb beans/wheat, 56 lb corn), 36.7/39.4 bu per tonne, cents/bu quoting, 5,000-bu lot, tick = 1/4 cent = $12.50 and 1 cent = $50/lot, month codes F-Z ('the Z'), prompt vs deferred, metric vs short ton, cwt, softs points, verbs (bid, offer, work, lifted, hit, done, washed out), differential quoting 'November plus 80', urgency priced in the plus (prompt +92 vs Oct +85), why only the local part is negotiated. Three dialogues: order fill, lifted-vs-hit, Santos beans quote. Example: 50 lots Dec corn = 250k bu ~6,800 t = $2,500 per cent, and Chicago wheat 640c x 0.367 = $235/t vs Russian $223/t FOB. Pulse: Monday pre-WASDE, name-it level (Wednesday WASDE, corn yield ~182 bpa expected, 2nd-largest crop). Friday close: KC wheat 7.14 +14c and SRW 6.40 on Black Sea tension, corn 4.39/4.62, beans 11.60, China daily-sales bookings, arabica 3.15 with stocks at 2.5y lows, sugar 16.5c, Russian wheat ~$223/t FOB.
+- **Ep 1** (Mon) — *The Units and the Language of the Desk*: Ep 1 rework (units primer): bushel 60/56 lb and 36.7/39.4 bu per tonne, cents/bu, 5000-bu lot (~136/127 t), metric vs short ton trap, cwt rice, ticks (quarter cent = $12.50) vs points, month codes H K N U X Z, flat price vs differential quoting (plus 70 over Z), prompt vs deferred, verbs bid/offer/work/done/lifted/hit/firm/washout, why physical quotes differentials (board = world risk, plus = local risk, offers can stay firm). 3 desk dialogues (futures order, Gulf corn physical, broker morning relay). Examples: $6.40 wheat = $235/t vs $223 Russian offer, 50-lot tick math $25k per 10c. Pulse: softs-led — ICE arabica certified stocks 2.5-yr low 244k bags vs robusta 4.5-mo high (divergence flagged for week 3), Oct raw sugar new move highs on weak Brazil CS June crush, Dec cotton highest since mid-May (hot dry Belt, soft dollar), grains quiet pre-WASDE (named only), China 238k t beans + 105k t corn
 - **Ep 2** (Tue) — *Flat Price vs Basis*: Flat price vs basis: cash = futures + basis; quoting 'November plus 80'; desk kills flat price via hedge; long the basis (physical + short futures) vs short the basis (sold unowned + long futures placeholder, crusher example); basis moved by freight, quality, congestion, urgency, farmer selling; basis risk as the chosen, analyzable risk. Vocab: flat price, cash price, differential, plus eighty, hedged position, long/short the basis, basis risk. Example: 66,000 t Santos cargo at Nov +80 — board - hedged to zero (~.4M each way) vs +10c basis = ~40k kept.

package/ep01.md

@@ -4,55 +4,54 @@
 
 ## Key takeaways
 
-- **The bushel is a volume measure, not a weight** — a legacy of the English grain trade, where grain was poured before it was weighed. For trading it is standardized by crop: **60 lb for soybeans and wheat, 56 lb for corn**. Hence the two conversion factors to memorize: **36.7 bu/tonne** (wheat, beans) and **39.4 bu/tonne** (corn).
-- Chicago quotes grain in **cents per bushel** ("four thirty-nine" = $4.39/bu). The contract — the **lot** — is **5,000 bushels** (~136 t of wheat/beans, ~127 t of corn). "Bought fifty" = fifty lots = 250,000 bu ≈ 6,800 t of wheat: a small ocean cargo in one sentence.
-- **Know what a move is worth before you trade**: the tick in Chicago grains is ¼¢/bu = **$12.50 per lot**; a full cent = **$50 per lot**. On 50 lots, every cent is $2,500.
-- Futures trade a **named delivery month**, each with a letter: F=Jan, H=Mar, K=May, N=Jul, U=Sep, X=Nov, Z=Dec ("the Z" = December). The nearby month is the **front / prompt**; further out is **deferred**.
-- The **verbs carry information**: you *bid* to buy, *offer* to sell, *work* a resting order. If your offer is taken you were **lifted**; if your bid is taken you were **hit**. *Done* seals the trade. *Washed out* = two offsetting trades cancel, only the difference changes hands.
-- Only the US talks in bushels. The rest of the world trades **dollars per metric tonne** (2,204.6 lb). Beware the **short ton** (2,000 lb — soybean meal trades in it): a 10% trap in any freight calculation.
-- The conversion bridge: **¢/bu × 0.367 = $/t** (wheat, beans), **× 0.394** (corn). Worked live: Chicago wheat at 640¢ ≈ **$235/t** — against Russian milling wheat offered near **$223/t FOB** the Black Sea. One unit, one world market, and you can watch them compete.
-- Oddities: US rice (and cattle) quote in **$/cwt** (hundredweight = 100 lb). Softs (coffee, sugar, cotton) quote in **cents per pound** and count moves in **points** = 1/100 of a cent — "coffee up 300 points" is 3¢/lb.
-- **A physical quote is a differential**: "November plus 80" = 80¢/bu over November futures. The futures leg is the world price both sides can hedge in one click — so the only number negotiated out loud is *the plus*, the local part: this port, this month, this quality, these ships. Urgency is priced there too ("prompt is plus 92"). Where that leads a desk is the next episode's subject.
+- The **bushel is a volume measure, not a weight** — a basket of roughly 35 liters, inherited from the English grain trade. Weight per bushel differs by commodity: **60 lb for soybeans and wheat, 56 lb for corn**, so the tonne conversions differ too: **≈36.7 bu/t** for beans and wheat, **≈39.4 bu/t** for corn.
+- Chicago quotes grain in **cents per bushel**; one futures contract — a **lot** — is **5,000 bushels** (≈136 t of wheat/beans, ≈127 t of corn). The rest of the world trades **dollars per metric tonne**: $6.40/bu wheat ≈ **$235/t**, which is what makes a $223/t Russian offer readable at a glance.
+- Two ton traps: the **metric tonne (2,204.6 lb)** vs the US **short ton (2,000 lb)** — 10% apart. Rice quotes in **$/cwt** (hundredweight = 100 lb); coffee, sugar and cotton in **cents per pound**.
+- The **tick** is the minimum move: ¼¢/bu in Chicago grains = **$12.50 per lot**. Softs count in **points** — 1/100 of a cent. A 10¢ move on 50 lots of corn = 40 ticks = **$25,000**.
+- Physical grain almost never trades at a full price. It trades as a **differential** against a named futures month — "**plus 70 over Z**" — using one-letter **month codes** (H March, K May, N July, U September, X November, Z December). **Prompt** = nearby shipment; **deferred** = further out.
+- The verbs are precise and binding: you are **bid** or you **offer** (commitments, not moods), you **work** a resting order, an offer gets **lifted**, a bid gets **hit**, offsetting contracts get **washed out** — and "**done**" creates a contract, voice first, paperwork later.
+- Why differentials at all? Because a grain price is **two risks glued together**: the futures leg is world risk anyone can shed on the screen in one click; the plus is the local part — port, window, quality — that no screen will take off your hands. The grammar mirrors the risk, and it lets an offer stay **firm** for ten minutes while the board moves.
 
 ## Vocabulary
 
 | Term | Desk meaning |
 |---|---|
-| Bushel | Volume measure standardized into weight: 60 lb (soybeans, wheat), 56 lb (corn) |
-| Cents per bushel | Chicago grain quoting unit — $4.39/bu is spoken "four thirty-nine" |
-| Lot / contract | One futures contract; 5,000 bu for Chicago grains |
-| Tick | Smallest price increment — ¼¢/bu in Chicago grains = $12.50/lot |
-| Point (softs) | 1/100 of a cent per pound; "up 300 points" = +3¢/lb |
-| Month codes | F, G, H, J, K, M, N, Q, U, V, X, Z = Jan…Dec; "the Z" = December |
-| Front / prompt | The nearby month or shipment window; **deferred** = further out |
-| Metric tonne vs short ton | 2,204.6 lb vs 2,000 lb — soybean meal trades in short tons |
-| Cwt | Hundredweight, 100 lb — quoting unit for US rice and cattle |
-| Conversion factors | 36.7 bu/t (wheat, beans), 39.4 bu/t (corn); ¢/bu × 0.367 (or 0.394) = $/t |
-| Bid / offer | The price a buyer will pay / a seller will accept |
-| Work an order | Leave an order resting at your price |
-| Lifted / hit | Your offer was taken / your bid was taken |
-| Done | The word that seals a trade |
-| Washed out | Offsetting trades cancel each other; only the difference is settled |
+| Bushel | Volume measure (~35 L): 60 lb of soybeans/wheat, 56 lb of corn |
+| Lot | One futures contract — 5,000 bu in Chicago grains |
+| Bushels per tonne | ≈36.7 for beans/wheat, ≈39.4 for corn |
+| Metric tonne / short ton | 2,204.6 lb vs 2,000 lb — 10% apart |
+| Cwt (hundredweight) | 100 lb; the quoting unit for US rice |
+| Tick | Minimum price move: ¼¢/bu = $12.50 per lot in Chicago grains |
+| Point | 1/100 of a cent per pound — how softs desks count moves |
+| Month codes | H=Mar, K=May, N=Jul, U=Sep, X=Nov, Z=Dec — said out loud ("plus 70 Z") |
 | Flat price | The full outright price level |
-| Differential ("plus 80") | Premium or discount to a named futures month — the negotiated part of a physical quote |
-
-## Market pulse (Monday morning, Aug 10 — week of the August WASDE)
-
-Wheat starts the week with a bid: KC September HRW closed Friday around **$7.14/bu (+14¢)**, Chicago SRW near **$6.40**, lifted by Black Sea tension. Corn is marking time — Sep ~$4.39, Dec ~$4.62 — ahead of **Wednesday's August WASDE**, the USDA's monthly supply-and-demand update and the first of the season built on farmer surveys; analysts expect a corn yield near **182 bpa**, which would make the second-largest US corn crop ever. Soybeans drift near **$11.60** with China booking US beans and corn in the daily sales flashes. Softs: arabica ~**$3.15/lb** with certified stocks at 2½-year lows; raw sugar ~**16.5¢/lb**. Russian milling wheat is offered near **$223/t FOB** — an anchor the episode converts against.
+| Differential / basis | The premium or discount to a named futures month ("plus 80") |
+| Prompt / deferred | Nearby shipment vs further down the curve |
+| Bid / offer | Firm prices to buy / sell — commitments, not moods |
+| "At" | Introduces the offer side: "462 bid, at 462½" |
+| Work | Leave an order resting with a broker |
+| Done | The word that makes a trade a binding contract |
+| Lifted / hit | The buyer took the offer / the seller sold into the bid |
+| Firm | A tradable quote that binds if accepted — often with a time limit |
+| Washout | Cancelling offsetting physical contracts by settling the difference |
+| Bag (coffee) | 60 kg — how the coffee trade counts volume |
+| WASDE | USDA's monthly World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates |
+
+## Market pulse (Monday Aug 10)
+
+Softs led. ICE **certified arabica stocks fell to 244,172 bags — a 2½-year low** — after slower Brazilian shipments following June rains; arabica jumped over 4% Friday and December held that range Monday. Robusta is the mirror image: certified stocks at a **4½-month high**. **October raw sugar printed new highs for the move** as Brazil's Center-South crushed sharply less cane in June and the new season runs behind last year. **December cotton rallied to its highest since mid-May** on a hot, dry US Cotton Belt and a softer dollar. Grains marked time ahead of **Wednesday's WASDE**; China booked 238,000 t of US soybeans and unknown buyers took 105,000 t of corn.
 
 ---
 
 ## QUIZ
 
-### Block A — Today (Ep 1: units and the language of the desk)
+*Episode 1 — today's block only (no earlier episodes to draw on).*
 
-**A1 — Translate the order, then size it.** A desk head says: "Buy me forty Dec corn, and work a bid, don't pay the offer." (a) Translate: what exactly is being bought — in lots, bushels and metric tonnes — and what does "work a bid" mean versus paying the offer? (b) Corn then rallies 7¢/bu. What is that worth on the position? (c) The same morning, Russian wheat offers fall $3/t. Which move is bigger in $/t terms — corn's +7¢/bu or Russian wheat's −$3/t?
+**Q1 — Done for fifty thousand tonnes.** December corn futures stand at $4.62½. An exporter offers Gulf corn at "plus 70 over Z" and a buyer says done for 50,000 metric tonnes. (a) Compute the full price per bushel and per metric tonne (corn ≈ 39.37 bu/t). (b) How many bushels did the buyer just commit to, and how many lots would hedge it one-to-one? (c) A colleague runs the same numbers using 36.7 bu/t "because that's the factor from the episode". What goes wrong, in bushels, lots and tonnes of exposure?
 
-**A2 — One market, two units.** Chicago SRW wheat trades at 655¢/bu; Russian milling wheat is offered at $228/t FOB Novorossiysk. (a) Put the Chicago price in $/t. (b) A colleague concludes: "US wheat is only $12 over Russian — we're nearly competitive." Give two reasons (from this episode's own warnings) why that comparison, as stated, is not yet a trade — what has the unit conversion *not* equalized?
+**Q2 — Read the tape.** Your broker's morning, October shipment: *9:02 — "I show plus 90 offered, best bid plus 82." 9:40 — "Buyer lifted the 90 for 25,000 tonnes. Done." 11:15 — futures have fallen 15¢; the same seller re-offers October at plus 90.* (a) At 9:40, who moved — buyer or seller — and what exactly did the word "done" create? (b) At 11:15, is the new plus-90 offer cheaper, dearer, or identical compared with the 9:40 trade? Answer twice: once in flat-price language, once in differential language. (c) Why can a differential offer sit "firm for ten minutes" while a flat-price offer can't?
 
-**A3 — Decode the squawk.** A broker relays: "For your October boat he offers November plus eighty-five; prompt he'd do plus ninety-four. Your plus eighty bid — you're not getting lifted at that. November's at eleven sixty." (a) In plain numbers: what full price per bushel is the October offer, and the prompt offer? (b) Why is prompt dearer, and what does that premium price? (c) The broker said "you're not getting lifted at that" — is "lifted" used correctly here, strictly speaking? What *should* happen to a bid for it to trade, and why do the verbs matter?
-
-*(No J-1 / J-3 blocks: this is Episode 1.)*
+**Q3 — The unit traps.** (a) A US seller quotes SRW wheat at "$228 per ton", meaning short tons. A buyer signs for 30,000 metric tonnes assuming metric. What price per metric tonne did the seller actually mean, and what is the total dollar gap on the contract? (b) Rough rice is quoted at $18.50/cwt. Convert to dollars per metric tonne. (c) Coffee "falls one-eighty on the day". How much is that in cents per pound, and what counting convention are you using?
 
 ---
 
@@ -64,81 +63,82 @@ Wheat starts the week with a bid: KC September HRW closed Friday around **$7.14/
 
 ## ▼ SOLUTIONS (spoilers) ▼
 
-**S-A1.** (a) Forty lots × 5,000 bu = **200,000 bu** of December-delivery corn futures. In tonnes: 200,000 ÷ 39.4 ≈ **5,080 t** (corn is 56 lb/bu — using the wheat factor 36.7 here is the classic day-one error). "Work a bid" = leave a resting buy order at your price and wait to be *hit*, rather than paying the seller's offer immediately — you risk missing the market to save the spread. (b) A cent is $50/lot, so 7¢ × 40 lots = 7 × $2,000 = **+$14,000**. (c) Corn +7¢/bu × 0.394 ≈ **+$2.76/t** — smaller than wheat's **$3/t** move. Per-tonne is the honest comparison unit; a "big" move in ¢/bu can be the smaller move once converted.
+**S1.** (a) Full price = 4.625 + 0.70 = **$5.325/bu**. Per tonne: 5.325 × 39.37 ≈ **$209.6/t**. (b) 50,000 t × 39.37 = **1,968,500 bu**; ÷ 5,000 = 393.7 → **≈394 lots**. (c) 36.7 bu/t is the **soybean/wheat** factor (60 lb bushels); corn bushels weigh 56 lb, so a tonne holds more of them. Using 36.7 gives 1,835,000 bu → 367 lots — an under-hedge of **~27 lots ≈ 133,500 bu ≈ 3,400 t** of corn left exposed to flat price. The trap: the bushel isn't one unit — it's one unit *per commodity*, which is exactly why the episode gave two conversion factors.
 
-**S-A2.** (a) 655¢ × 0.367 ≈ **$240/t**. (b) The conversion equalized the *unit*, nothing else. First: **location and freight** — $240 is a Gulf/Chicago-linked price, $228 is FOB Novorossiysk; the two part-cargoes land at an importer's berth with different freight, so the delivered comparison can invert. Second: **the wheats are not the same wheat** — different quality/protein and origin; "wheat" is a family of distinct markets (SRW vs 12.5% milling), and a buyer's tender specifies which one it will accept. (Both points get full episodes.) The conversion makes the two screens *comparable*, not *interchangeable*.
+**S2.** (a) The **buyer** moved: "lifted" means the buyer took the standing offer. "Done" created a **binding contract** for 25,000 t at October futures + 90¢ — voice first, confirmations later. (b) In **flat-price** terms the new offer is **15¢ cheaper**: the board fell 15¢ and the offer is board + 90, so the all-in dollar price fell with it. In **differential** terms it is **identical**: plus 90 before, plus 90 now — in the language of the desk, the seller "hasn't moved". Both statements are true at once; which one matters depends on which risk you're carrying (Episode 2 takes exactly this up). (c) A differential offer only exposes the seller to movement in the *local* component — the board leg reprices itself continuously and both sides can hedge it in one click. A flat-price offer silently bets that futures won't move while it sits: in a falling market it's instantly stale (or adversely selected in a rally). The differential convention is what lets physical offers survive minutes, not seconds, next to a live screen.
 
-**S-A3.** (a) October offer: 11.60 + 0.85 = **$12.45/bu**. Prompt: 11.60 + 0.94 = **$12.54/bu**. (Both float with November futures — only the plus is firm.) (b) Prompt shipment is dearer by 9¢: the premium prices **urgency** — vessels, port slots and sellers able to perform *now* are scarcer than ones performing in October. Urgency lives in the differential, not the flat price. (c) Strictly, no — an *offer* is lifted; a *bid* is **hit**. For the plus-80 bid to trade, a seller must come down and hit it. Desks do sometimes say "lifted" loosely, but the strict verbs carry real information: "I was hit" tells the room the aggressor was a seller — who initiated tells you which way the market is leaning, which is exactly why the vocabulary exists.
+**S3.** (a) A short ton is 2,000 lb = 0.90718 metric tonnes, so $228/short ton = 228 ÷ 0.90718 ≈ **$251.3/metric tonne**. Gap ≈ $23.3/t × 30,000 t ≈ **$700,000** on the contract — from one three-letter word ("ton") left unconfirmed. (b) $18.50/cwt × 22.046 cwt/t ≈ **$408/t**. (c) Softs count in **points**, 1/100 of a cent per pound: "one-eighty" = 180 points = **1.80¢/lb**. The habit to build: every quote comes with a unit convention attached, and the desk never says it out loud — you're expected to know.
 
 ---
 
 ## The episode, in writing
 
-### "Fifty lots of Dec corn, at the market"
-
-On a trading floor, that sentence is a complete instruction. To everyone else it is three riddles: fifty of *what*, which *December*, and the market for what? This opening episode is a phrasebook, not a lecture: the units, the conventions, and the verbs that make a working desk intelligible. By the end, that order reads as a plain sentence — and you'll know what it weighs.
+### Eleven words, ten million dollars
 
-### The bushel: a basket, standardized
+"Plus seventy over Z. Fifty thousand tonnes. Firm for ten minutes." Somewhere this morning, a sentence like that bought roughly ten million dollars of corn — and to anyone new to the business, not one of its eleven words means anything. This opening episode is the decoder: the units, the grammar of a quote, and the small set of verbs that do the industry's business. By the end, that offer reads itself.
 
-The bushel is the strangest unit in finance because it is a **volume** — a round basket of about 35 litres — inherited from the English grain trade, where grain was poured and measured long before it was weighed. America kept the word and then nailed it down: for trading purposes, a bushel of soybeans or wheat is defined as **60 pounds**; corn is **56**.
+### A basket, not a weight
 
-Same word, different weights — so the tonne conversion differs by crop:
+Start with the strangest unit on the floor. The **bushel** is a *volume* measure — a basket of roughly 35 liters — inherited from the English grain trade, which measured grain by the basket long before anyone weighed it. America kept the bushel; the rest of the world moved to tonnes.
 
-| Crop | lb/bu | bu per metric tonne |
-|---|---|---|
-| Wheat, soybeans | 60 | **36.7** |
-| Corn | 56 | **39.4** |
+Because it's a volume, its weight depends on what's in it: **60 lb** for soybeans and wheat, **56 lb** for corn. That single fact drives the two conversion factors a grain trader uses all day:
 
-### Lots, ticks, and what a cent is worth
+| | lb/bu | bu per metric tonne | 5,000-bu lot |
+|---|---|---|---|
+| Soybeans, wheat | 60 | ≈36.7 | ≈136 t |
+| Corn | 56 | ≈39.4 | ≈127 t |
 
-Chicago quotes grain in **cents per bushel** — corn at $4.39 is spoken "four thirty-nine"; the desk never says dollars. Nobody trades one bushel: the contract, the **lot**, is **5,000 bushels** (~136 t of wheat or beans, ~127 t of corn). "Bought fifty" means fifty lots — 250,000 bu, roughly 6,800 t of wheat. A small ocean cargo, transacted in one sentence.
+Chicago quotes in **cents per bushel**, and one futures contract — one **lot** — is 5,000 bushels. So "we bought fifty lots of corn" means a quarter of a million bushels, about 6,300 tonnes: counted in lots, moved in tonnes, quoted in cents. Three languages for one pile of grain.
 
-The **tick** — the smallest step a price can move — is ¼¢/bu in Chicago grains, worth **$12.50 per lot**; a full cent is **$50 per lot**. So the fifty-lot order carries $2,500 of P&L per cent of movement. Units are not trivia; they are how you know what you are risking before you open your mouth.
+The conversion is worth practicing once: Chicago wheat at $6.40/bu × 36.7 ≈ **$235/t**. Suddenly a Russian export offer at $223/t means something to your eye. (Different wheat, different port — comparing them *properly* is a later episode — but the numbers now live on the same axis.)
 
-### Months have letters
+Two remaining ton traps: the world's **metric tonne** is 2,204.6 lb, while US domestic markets often use the **short ton** of 2,000 lb — 10% apart, and a costly thing to leave ambiguous. Rice quotes in dollars per **hundredweight** (cwt = 100 lb); coffee, sugar and cotton in cents per pound.
 
-Futures trade a commodity *for a named delivery month*: H March, K May, N July, U September, Z December — plus F January and X November in the oilseeds. Out loud a desk mostly says "Dec" and "July"; the letters live in tickers and position sheets, but "the Z" means December. The nearby month is the **front**, or **prompt**; everything beyond is **deferred** — and the front and the deferred often tell two different stories about the same crop, which is where this week is heading.
+Finally the **tick**, the minimum price move: a quarter-cent per bushel in Chicago grains, worth **$12.50 per lot**. Softs desks count in **points** — hundredths of a cent ("coffee up one-twenty" = 1.2¢/lb). Tick math turns squawk into money: a 10¢ move against fifty lots of corn is 40 ticks × $12.50 × 50 = **$25,000**.
 
-### The order, executed
+### How a futures order sounds
 
 > **TRADER:** Where's Dec corn?
-> **BROKER:** Four thirty-nine and a quarter, at four thirty-nine and a half.
+> **BROKER:** Four sixty-two bid, at four sixty-two and a half.
 > **TRADER:** Buy me fifty at the half.
-> **BROKER:** Done. You're filled — fifty Dec at four thirty-nine and a half.
+> **BROKER:** Done. Fifty lots at four sixty-two and a half.
 
-The broker quoted two numbers: the **bid** (what buyers will pay) and the **offer** (what sellers want), a quarter cent apart. The trader paid the offer. A quarter-million bushels changed hands, and both sides knew the size of the risk before anyone said yes.
+Eight seconds of business. "Dec" is the December contract. "Bid" is where buyers are paying, and the small word "**at**" introduces the offer: $4.62 bid, offered at $4.62½. And "**done**" is not filler — done means the trade exists. On a desk, done is a contract; the paperwork comes later.
 
-The verbs carry as much as the numbers. You **bid** to buy, **offer** to sell, **work** an order by leaving it resting at your price. When a trade prints, the grammar tells you who moved: an offer that gets taken was **lifted**; a bid that gets taken was **hit**; **done** seals either. In a quiet market, "you're lifted" — the buyer came to *you*, at *your* price — is information, not politeness. One more for the collection: **washed out**, when two offsetting trades cancel and only the difference changes hands. It gets a full episode later in the series.
-
-### Leaving Chicago: dollars per tonne
+### The grammar of a physical quote
 
-Only America talks in bushels. The rest of the world trades grain in **dollars per metric tonne** (2,204.6 lb) — Russian wheat, Ukrainian corn, Brazilian beans, all quoted FOB a named port. Mind the trap inside the word "ton": the American **short ton** is 2,000 lb even, about 10% lighter, and one major contract — soybean meal — actually trades in it. Mixing the two in a freight calculation is a real-money error.
+Physical grain — real tonnes in a real port — speaks a second dialect. It almost never trades at a full price. It trades as a *distance from the futures board*: plus eighty, minus twenty, always against a named month. That distance is the **differential**, or the **basis**.
 
-The conversion bridge runs through the bushel weights:
+The months carry one-letter codes, said out loud: **H** March, **K** May, **N** July, **U** September, **Z** December — and **X** November, the soybean harvest month. Hence "Gulf corn plus seventy Z", "beans plus eighty X". Add two words of tense: **prompt** (shipment now or near it) and **deferred** (further down the curve). The same corn can be plus 70 prompt and plus 50 deferred — and that gap is information.
 
-> **$/t ≈ ¢/bu × 0.367** (wheat, soybeans)  **·**  **× 0.394** (corn)
+> **BUYER:** Gulf corn, first half September, where are you?
+> **SELLER:** I can offer plus seventy-two over Z.
+> **BUYER:** I'm a buyer at plus sixty-eight.
+> **SELLER:** Can't get there. Plus seventy, fifty thousand tonnes, firm for ten minutes.
+> **BUYER:** Done. Seventy over Z, first half September.
 
-Worked live: Chicago wheat at 640¢ × 0.367 ≈ **$235/t**. Against Russian milling wheat offered near **$223/t FOB** the Black Sea, the American screen and the Russian cash market are suddenly speaking the same language — and you can watch them compete for the same customers. That is what conversions are for: not arithmetic, comparison. One world market, visible in one unit.
+That seller's line is the sentence the episode opened with. Notice what never got said: a price. Both parties carry the board in their heads; the only number they argued about was the plus. And "firm for ten minutes" is an offer with a fuse — a **firm** offer is tradable, binding the moment someone says done, which is exactly why sellers put a clock on it.
 
-Two oddities to file: US **rice** (and cattle) quote in dollars per **hundredweight** (cwt = 100 lb); and the **softs** — coffee, sugar, cotton — quote in cents per pound with moves counted in **points**, each 1/100 of a cent. "Coffee rallied 300 points" is three cents a pound. Sounds enormous; isn't.
+### The verbs
 
-### The grammar of a physical quote
+There are about seven, and they are precise. You are never "interested in buying" — you are **bid**. You never "consider selling" — you **offer**. Both are commitments, not moods. To **work** an order is to leave it resting with a broker. When a buyer takes an offer, it was **lifted**; when a seller sells into a bid, it was **hit** — direction is baked into the verb. And when two offsetting physical contracts between the same parties are cancelled against each other, settled for the money difference instead of shipping grain both ways, the trade was **washed out**.
 
-The most important layer comes last. On the screen, corn has one visible price. Physical traders talk differently:
+> **BROKER:** Your plus eighty offer — I've got a buyer indicating seventy-five.
+> **DESK:** Work seventy-eight. Firm.
+> **BROKER:** He lifts it. Done at seventy-eight for twenty-five thousand tonnes.
+> **DESK:** Confirmed. What's on the bid side?
+> **BROKER:** Someone hit a seventy-two bid this morning. I'd call your market seventy-two, seventy-eight.
 
-> **BUYER:** Santos, October shipment. What are beans?
-> **SELLER:** I can offer November plus eighty.
-> **BUYER:** Plus eighty. And if I need it prompt?
-> **SELLER:** Prompt is plus ninety-two. Ships want paying.
+Two trades, and the desk knows where its market lives: 72 bid, 78 offered. Nobody published that number — it exists only in the traffic. That is why desks pay brokers, and why the language matters.
 
-Nobody said a price. "**November plus 80**" means 80¢/bu over the November Chicago contract — wherever futures go, the offer floats with them. The negotiated number is only *the plus*: the **differential**.
+### Why a plus, and never a price
 
-Why does an entire market talk this way? Because of what each number carries. The futures leg is the *world* price — weather, crop sizes, funds, war — and both sides can hedge it on the screen in one second, so neither needs to argue about it. What no click can hedge is the *local* part: this port, this month, this quality, these ships. That is the part worth negotiating, so it is the only part said out loud. Note what the seller revealed on the way past: prompt costs twelve cents more — **urgency has a price, and it is quoted in the plus**.
+The question underneath the whole episode: why does physical grain quote differentials at all? Because a grain price is really **two risks glued together — and only one of them is yours**. The futures leg is world risk: weather, funds, a WASDE print — public, violent, and sheddable on the screen in one click, so the conversation doesn't waste breath on it. The plus is the local part: this port, this shipment window, this quality — the part no screen will take off your hands, and therefore the part professionals negotiate.
 
-Read the convention and it tells you where the risk sits: the world price lives on the screen, rented out to anyone; the local price is the physical trader's actual market. What a desk *does* with that split is the next episode's entire subject.
+The grammar mirrors the risk: the board carries the world; the plus carries your problem. It's also what lets a physical offer survive — plus 70 can stay firm for ten minutes while the board moves a nickel, where a flat-price offer would be stale in seconds. The convention is what makes trading real grain next to a live screen possible at all.
 
-### Expect a foreign-language week
+### Market pulse recap
 
-If half of these words still feel foreign, that is normal — for about a week. Every term from this episode sits in the glossary below the notes, and the glossary grows with the show. Use it like a phrasebook.
+Softs led Monday: ICE certified arabica stocks at 244,172 bags (a 2½-year low) against robusta stocks at a 4½-month high — one market draining, the other refilling; October raw sugar at new highs for the move on Brazil's weak June crush; December cotton at its best since mid-May on a hot, dry Cotton Belt and a softer dollar. Grains waited on Wednesday's WASDE while China booked 238,000 t of beans and unknown buyers took 105,000 t of corn.
 
-*Next — Episode 2: Flat price vs basis. The number on the screen is not the price of your cargo, and the gap between the two is where a physical desk actually lives.*
+*Next — Episode 2: Flat price vs basis. The screen says one number; a cargo is worth another. What a desk actually does with the plus you just learned to hear.*

package/ep01.script.txt

@@ -1,66 +1,71 @@
-Fifty lots of Dec corn, at the market. On a trading floor, that sentence is a complete instruction. ||| 0.5
-To everyone else, it is three riddles. Fifty of what? Which December? And the market for what? ||| 0.5
-This is Commodity Desk Daily, episode one. Today: the units, and the language of the desk. Not a lecture — a phrasebook. ||| 0.5
-By the end, that order will read like a plain sentence. And you will know exactly what it weighs. ||| 0.7
-First, the market pulse. ||| 0.4
-Wheat goes into the week with a bid. Kansas City hard red winter closed Friday around seven fourteen a bushel, up fourteen cents on the day, with Chicago soft red near six forty. Black Sea tension did the lifting. ||| 0.5
-Note the unit that just went by — cents per bushel. Hold that thought. It is today's whole subject. ||| 0.5
-Corn is waiting. September sits near four thirty nine, December near four sixty two. The reason for the wait comes Wednesday: the U S D A publishes its August WASDE report, the monthly supply and demand update, and the first of the season built on actual farmer surveys. Analysts expect a corn yield near one eighty two bushels an acre — if that prints, it is the second largest corn crop ever. ||| 0.6
-Soybeans drift near eleven sixty. The demand side is doing its part: China has been booking U S beans and corn in the daily sales flashes. ||| 0.5
-In the softs, arabica coffee trades around three dollars fifteen a pound, with exchange stocks at two and a half year lows. Raw sugar sits near sixteen and a half cents a pound. ||| 0.5
-A bushel. An acre. A pound. If your head is spinning, good. Let's fix that now. ||| 0.8
-Start with the strangest one. The bushel. ||| 0.4
-A bushel is a volume measure, not a weight. Picture a round basket, about thirty five liters. ||| 0.4
-It comes from the English grain trade, where grain was poured and measured before it was weighed. America kept the word, then nailed it down: for trading, a bushel of soybeans or wheat is defined as sixty pounds. Corn, fifty six. ||| 0.5
-Same word, different weights. So the conversion to tonnes differs by crop. Remember two numbers: thirty six point seven bushels of wheat or beans make one metric tonne. For corn, thirty nine point four. ||| 0.6
-Chicago quotes grain in cents per bushel. Corn at four thirty nine is four dollars and thirty nine cents a bushel — but the desk never says dollars. It says four thirty nine. ||| 0.5
-And nobody trades one bushel. The Chicago contract is five thousand bushels. That is the lot. When someone says they bought fifty, they mean fifty lots — two hundred and fifty thousand bushels. Call it sixty eight hundred tonnes of wheat. A small ocean cargo, bought in one sentence. ||| 0.6
-Two more words and that sentence is fully armed. The tick is the smallest step a price can move — in Chicago grains, a quarter of a cent per bushel. On one lot of five thousand bushels, that quarter cent is twelve dollars fifty. A full cent is fifty dollars a lot. ||| 0.5
-So on fifty lots, every cent of movement is twenty five hundred dollars. Units are not trivia. They are how you know what you are risking before you open your mouth. ||| 0.7
-One more piece: the month. Futures do not trade corn. They trade corn for delivery in a named month — and every month has a letter. ||| 0.4
-H is March. K is May. N is July. U is September. Z is December. Add F for January and X for November in the oilseeds. ||| 0.5
-Out loud, a desk mostly says Dec and July. The letters live in tickers and position sheets. But when someone says the Z, they mean December. ||| 0.5
-The nearby month is the front, the prompt. Anything further out is deferred. Sounds like admin — it is not. The front and the deferred often tell two different stories about the same crop, and later this week you will see why. ||| 0.7
-Put it together, and here is a real order, start to finish. ||| 0.5
+Plus seventy over Z. Fifty thousand tonnes. Firm for ten minutes. ||| 0.5
+Eleven words. Roughly ten million dollars of corn. And if you're new to this business, not one of them means anything yet. ||| 0.5
+This is Commodity Desk Daily, episode one: the units, and the language of the desk. Not a lecture — a decoder. By the end of this episode, that offer reads itself. ||| 0.7
+First, the pulse. Today's markets — quoted, deliberately, in the units you're about to learn. ||| 0.5
+The softs lead. Certified arabica coffee stocks at the exchange have fallen to two hundred forty-four thousand bags, a two and a half year low. ||| 0.3
+A bag is sixty kilos — it's how the coffee trade counts, from farm gate to warehouse. ||| 0.4
+Brazil shipped less than expected after June rains, and arabica jumped over four percent on Friday. Monday, December eased but held the range. ||| 0.5
+Robusta is the mirror image: exchange stocks at a four and a half month high. One coffee market draining, the other refilling. Hold that thought for week three. ||| 0.6
+Sugar: October raws printed new highs for this move. Brazil's Center South crushed sharply less cane in June, and the new season runs behind last year. ||| 0.5
+Cotton: December extended its rally to levels last seen in mid May. The U S cotton belt is hot and dry, and a softer dollar helps U S exports. ||| 0.5
+Grains are quieter, waiting on Wednesday's WASDE — the U S D A's monthly supply and demand report, the one release that stops every grain desk. It gets its own episode next week. ||| 0.4
+China booked two hundred thirty-eight thousand tonnes of U S soybeans, and unknown buyers took a hundred and five thousand tonnes of corn. Demand, quietly ticking over. ||| 0.7
+Now, the units. Start with the strangest one: the bushel. ||| 0.4
+A bushel is a volume measure, not a weight. A basket, roughly thirty-five liters. ||| 0.4
+The number that matters: for soybeans and wheat, a bushel weighs sixty pounds. For corn, fifty-six. ||| 0.4
+Why? The English grain trade measured grain by the basket before anyone weighed it. America kept the bushel. The rest of the world moved to tonnes. ||| 0.5
+Which means a trader converts between the two all day. The magic numbers: thirty-six point seven bushels of beans or wheat per metric tonne. Thirty-nine point four for corn. ||| 0.6
+Chicago quotes grain in cents per bushel. One futures contract — one lot — is five thousand bushels. Call it a hundred and thirty-six tonnes of wheat, or a hundred and twenty-seven of corn. ||| 0.5
+So when a desk says it bought fifty lots of corn, that's a quarter of a million bushels — about sixty-three hundred tonnes. Counted in lots, moved in tonnes, quoted in cents. Three languages for one pile of grain. ||| 0.7
+Practice the conversion once, because you will do it forever. Chicago wheat at six dollars forty a bushel. Times thirty-six point seven: about two hundred thirty-five dollars a tonne. ||| 0.4
+Now a Russian export offer at two hundred twenty-three dollars a tonne means something to your eye. Different wheat, different port — that comparison is a later episode — but the numbers now live on the same axis. ||| 0.6
+Two more ton traps. The world trades the metric tonne — two thousand two hundred four pounds. American domestic markets often use the short ton — two thousand pounds flat. Ten percent apart. Confuse them on a contract and you have given away one tonne in ten. ||| 0.6
+And rice quotes in dollars per hundredweight — cwt, a hundred pounds. Coffee, sugar and cotton: cents per pound. ||| 0.6
+Last piece of arithmetic: the tick, the minimum price move. In Chicago grains, a quarter of a cent per bushel. On a five thousand bushel lot, that's twelve dollars fifty. ||| 0.4
+Softs desks talk in points instead — one point is a hundredth of a cent. Coffee up one twenty on the day means a hundred and twenty points. One point two cents. ||| 0.5
+Do the tick math on our fifty lot corn buyer. A ten cent move is forty ticks — five hundred dollars a lot, twenty-five thousand dollars across the position. From four words on a squawk box, you now know the money. ||| 0.8
+Here's how those units sound at work. A trader and a broker, eight seconds of business. ||| 0.5
 TRADER: Where's Dec corn? ||| 0.25
-BROKER: Four thirty nine and a quarter, at four thirty nine and a half. ||| 0.25
+BROKER: Four sixty-two bid, at four sixty-two and a half. ||| 0.25
 TRADER: Buy me fifty at the half. ||| 0.25
-BROKER: Done. You're filled — fifty Dec at four thirty nine and a half. ||| 0.6
-Decode it. The broker quoted two numbers: the bid, what buyers will pay, and the offer, what sellers want — a quarter cent apart. The trader paid the offer. Fifty lots, a quarter million bushels of December corn, and both sides knew the size of the risk before anyone said yes. ||| 0.7
-The verbs matter as much as the numbers. You bid to buy. You offer to sell. You work an order — leave it resting at your price, and wait. ||| 0.5
-And when a trade prints, the language tells you who moved. If your offer gets taken, you were lifted. If your bid gets taken, you were hit. Done seals any of it. ||| 0.5
-Listen for the difference. ||| 0.4
-TRADER: Offer ten September wheat at six forty. Work it. ||| 0.25
-BROKER: Working ten at six forty. ||| 0.5
-BROKER: You're lifted on ten. ||| 0.25
-TRADER: Done. Anything behind it? ||| 0.25
-BROKER: Buyer's still there. He'd pay the same for ten more. ||| 0.6
-One word — lifted — told the trader the buyer came to him, at his price. In a quiet market, that is information, not grammar. ||| 0.6
-One last verb for the collection: washed out. Two offsetting trades cancel each other, and only the price difference changes hands. File it — it gets a full episode when we reach contracts. ||| 0.7
-Now leave Chicago. Here is the catch: only America talks like this. The rest of the world trades grain in dollars per metric tonne. Russian wheat, Ukrainian corn, Brazilian beans on the cash market — dollars per tonne, F O B a named port. ||| 0.6
-And mind the word tonne. A metric tonne is twenty two hundred and four pounds. America also runs a short ton — two thousand pounds even — and one major contract, soybean meal, actually trades in short tons. They sit ten percent apart. Mix them up in a freight calculation and the error is real money. ||| 0.6
-So a trader converts all day long, and the bridge is those bushel weights. For wheat and beans, multiply cents per bushel by point three six seven to get dollars per tonne. For corn, point three nine four. ||| 0.5
-Try it. Chicago wheat at six forty — six hundred and forty cents — times point three six seven. About two hundred and thirty five dollars a tonne. ||| 0.5
-Why bother? Because Russian milling wheat is currently offered near two twenty three a tonne, F O B the Black Sea. Two thirty five against two twenty three. Suddenly the American screen and the Russian cash market are speaking the same language, and you can watch them compete for the same customers. ||| 0.6
-That is what conversions are for. Not arithmetic for its own sake — comparison. One world market, finally visible in one unit. ||| 0.7
-Two oddities to file away. American rice is quoted in dollars per hundredweight — spoken C W T — one hundred pounds. Cattle too. ||| 0.5
-And the softs — coffee, sugar, cotton — trade in cents per pound, with their small moves counted in points: one point is one hundredth of a cent. When a broker says coffee rallied three hundred points, that is three cents a pound. Sounds enormous. Isn't. ||| 0.7
-Now the last layer, and the most important one: the grammar of a physical quote. ||| 0.5
-On the screen, corn has one visible price. But listen to two physical traders on a cargo of soybeans out of Santos, Brazil. ||| 0.4
-BUYER: Santos, October shipment. What are beans? ||| 0.25
-SELLER: I can offer November plus eighty. ||| 0.25
-BUYER: Plus eighty. And if I need it prompt? ||| 0.25
-SELLER: Prompt is plus ninety two. Ships want paying. ||| 0.6
-Nobody said a price. November plus eighty means eighty cents a bushel over the November Chicago contract — wherever November futures go, the offer floats with them. The only number being negotiated is the plus. The differential. ||| 0.6
-Why would a market talk this way? Think about what each number carries. The futures leg is the world price — weather, crop sizes, funds, war. Both sides can hedge it on the screen in one second, so neither side needs to argue about it. ||| 0.5
-What they cannot hedge with a click is the local part. This port, this month, this quality, these ships. That is the part worth negotiating — so that is the only part they say out loud. ||| 0.5
-And notice what the seller just told you: prompt costs twelve cents more than October. Urgency has a price, and it is quoted in the plus. ||| 0.5
-Read the convention and it tells you where the risk sits. The world price lives on the screen, rented out to anyone who wants it. The local price is the physical trader's actual market. What a desk does with that split — that is the next episode's entire subject. ||| 0.8
-What to keep. ||| 0.4
-A bushel is volume standardized into weight: sixty pounds for beans and wheat, fifty six for corn — hence thirty six point seven and thirty nine point four bushels to the tonne. ||| 0.5
-A Chicago lot is five thousand bushels, and a cent is fifty dollars a lot. Know your size before you know your opinion. ||| 0.5
-America quotes cents per bushel. The world quotes dollars per tonne. The desk lives in the conversion. ||| 0.5
-And a physical quote is a differential against a named month. The plus is the market. ||| 0.6
-If half of these words still feel foreign, that is normal — for about a week. Every term from today sits in the written notes, in a glossary that grows with the show. Use it like a phrasebook. ||| 0.6
-Next time: flat price versus basis. The number on the screen is not the price of your cargo — and the gap between the two is where a physical desk actually lives. ||| 0.5
-There is a quiz in the show notes — three questions, with worked solutions. Try them before you peek. See you on the desk. ||| 0.8
+BROKER: Done. Fifty lots at four sixty-two and a half. ||| 0.5
+Unpack it. Dec is the December contract. Bid is where buyers are paying. At — that one small word introduces the offer. Four sixty-two bid, offered at four sixty-two and a half. ||| 0.4
+And done is not filler. Done means the trade exists. On a desk, done is a contract — the paperwork comes later. ||| 0.7
+That was futures. Physical grain — real tonnes in a real port — speaks a second dialect. ||| 0.4
+Physical almost never trades at a full price. It trades as a distance from the futures board: plus eighty. Minus twenty. Always against a named month. ||| 0.5
+That distance is called the differential — or the basis. Say a corn exporter offers plus seventy over December: the price is December futures, whatever it is right now, plus seventy cents. ||| 0.5
+The months carry one letter codes, and desks say them out loud. H is March. K is May. N is July. U is September. Z is December. And X is November, the soybean harvest month. So Gulf corn plus seventy Z. Beans plus eighty X. ||| 0.6
+Two more words of grammar. Prompt means nearby — shipment now, or close to it. Deferred means further down the curve. The same corn can be plus seventy prompt and plus fifty deferred, and that gap is information. ||| 0.7
+Now listen to a physical trade. A buyer and an exporter, Gulf corn. ||| 0.5
+BUYER: Gulf corn, first half September, where are you? ||| 0.25
+SELLER: I can offer plus seventy-two over Z. ||| 0.25
+BUYER: I'm a buyer at plus sixty-eight. ||| 0.25
+SELLER: Can't get there. Plus seventy, fifty thousand tonnes, firm for ten minutes. ||| 0.25
+BUYER: Done. Seventy over Z, first half September. ||| 0.6
+That seller's line is the sentence we opened the show with. Notice what never got said: a price. Both of them carry the board in their heads, and the only number they argued about was the plus. ||| 0.5
+And notice firm for ten minutes — an offer with a fuse. A firm offer is tradable: say done, and it binds. Which is exactly why sellers put a clock on it. ||| 0.7
+Third dialect: the verbs. There are about seven you need, and they are precise. ||| 0.4
+You are never "interested in buying". You are bid. You never "consider selling". You offer. Bid and offer are commitments, not moods. ||| 0.5
+To work an order is to leave it resting with a broker — working sixty-eight means your bid sits in the market while you do something else. ||| 0.4
+When a buyer takes an offer, the offer was lifted. When a seller sells into a bid, the bid was hit. Direction is baked into the verb: lifted means the buyer moved. Hit means the seller did. ||| 0.5
+And when two offsetting physical contracts between the same two parties get cancelled against each other — settled for the money difference instead of shipping grain both ways — the trade was washed out. ||| 0.7
+One more exchange. A broker giving a desk its morning picture. ||| 0.5
+BROKER: Your plus eighty offer — I've got a buyer indicating seventy-five. ||| 0.25
+DESK: Work seventy-eight. Firm. ||| 0.25
+BROKER: He lifts it. Done at seventy-eight for twenty-five thousand tonnes. ||| 0.25
+DESK: Confirmed. What's on the bid side? ||| 0.25
+BROKER: Someone hit a seventy-two bid this morning. I'd call your market seventy-two, seventy-eight. ||| 0.6
+Two trades, and the desk knows where its market lives: seventy-two bid, seventy-eight offered. Nobody published that. It lives only in the traffic — which is why desks pay brokers, and why the language matters. ||| 0.8
+Now the question underneath the whole episode. Why does physical grain quote differentials at all? Why plus seventy, instead of just saying five dollars thirty-two? ||| 0.5
+Because the price of grain is really two risks glued together — and only one of them is yours. ||| 0.4
+The futures leg is world risk: weather, funds, a WASDE print. It's public, it's violent, and anyone can shed it on the screen in one click. So the conversation doesn't waste breath on it. ||| 0.5
+The plus is the local part: this port, this shipment window, this quality. No screen will take that off your hands. So that is the part professionals negotiate. ||| 0.5
+The grammar mirrors the risk. Listen to any quote and you can hear where the risk sits: the board carries the world. The plus carries your problem. ||| 0.5
+It's also what lets a physical offer survive. Plus seventy can stay firm for ten minutes while the board moves a nickel. A flat price offer would be stale in seconds. The convention is what makes trading real grain around a live screen possible at all. ||| 0.8
+If half of today felt foreign — good. Nobody learns a language from a dictionary. You learn it by hearing it used, daily. That's what this show is. ||| 0.5
+And nothing is lost: the notes carry a full glossary — every unit, every conversion, every verb — growing with the series. When an episode outruns you, it catches you. ||| 0.7
+What to remember. A bushel is volume, not weight: sixty pounds for beans and wheat, fifty-six for corn — thirty-six point seven and thirty-nine point four to the tonne. ||| 0.5
+A quote has two parts, and only one gets negotiated. The board is the world. The plus is the local truth. ||| 0.5
+And the verbs are contracts. Bid, offer, lifted, hit — and done means done. ||| 0.7
+Next episode: what a desk actually does with that plus. Flat price versus basis — why the number on the screen is not your price, and why the gap between them is where a physical merchant lives. ||| 0.4
+The quiz for today is in the notes — three questions, all application, solutions below the fold. Same time tomorrow. ||| 0.5

package/feed.xml

@@ -20,11 +20,11 @@
     </image>
     <item>
       <title>Ep 1 — The Units and the Language of the Desk</title>
-      <description>The bushel, the lot, the tick, dollars per tonne and the month letters — the phrasebook that makes a trading floor intelligible. Plus the grammar of a physical quote: why the only number negotiated out loud is the plus.</description>
-      <enclosure url="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/@sdelsad/commodity-desk-daily@1.0.8/ep01.mp3" length="7897581" type="audio/mpeg"/>
-      <guid>https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/@sdelsad/commodity-desk-daily@1.0.8/ep01.mp3</guid>
+      <description>The decoder episode: bushels, lots, ticks, month codes, and how ten million dollars of corn trades in eleven words. Three desk dialogues teach the grammar of a quote — and why physical grain trades as a plus, never a price.</description>
+      <enclosure url="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/@sdelsad/commodity-desk-daily@1.0.9/ep01.mp3" length="8004429" type="audio/mpeg"/>
+      <guid>https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/@sdelsad/commodity-desk-daily@1.0.9/ep01.mp3</guid>
       <pubDate>Mon, 10 Aug 2026 05:00:00 GMT</pubDate>
-      <itunes:duration>658</itunes:duration>
+      <itunes:duration>666</itunes:duration>
     </item>
     <item>
       <title>Ep 2 — Flat Price vs Basis</title>

package/glossary.md

@@ -2,14 +2,20 @@
 
 Units, conventions and desk expressions, accumulated as the show introduces them.
 
+- **at** — the small word that introduces the offer side (462 bid, at 462 and a half)  _(ep 1)_
+- **bag (coffee)** — 60 kg, how the coffee trade counts volume  _(ep 1)_
 - **bid** — the price a buyer will pay  _(ep 1)_
 - **bushel** — volume measure standardized into weight, 60 lb for soybeans and wheat, 56 lb for corn  _(ep 1)_
+- **bushels per tonne** — about 36.7 for soybeans and wheat, 39.4 for corn  _(ep 1)_
 - **cents per bushel** — Chicago grain quoting unit, 4.39 dollars per bushel is spoken four thirty-nine  _(ep 1)_
 - **conversion factors** — 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  _(ep 1)_
 - **cwt** — hundredweight, 100 lb, the quoting unit for US rice and cattle  _(ep 1)_
+- **cwt (hundredweight)** — 100 lb, the quoting unit for US rice  _(ep 1)_
 - **deferred** — months or shipment windows further out  _(ep 1)_
 - **differential** — the premium or discount to a named futures month, as in November plus 80, the negotiated part of a physical quote  _(ep 1)_
+- **differential (basis)** — the premium or discount to a named futures month, quoted as plus 80 or minus 20  _(ep 1)_
 - **done** — the word that seals a trade  _(ep 1)_
+- **firm** — a tradable quote that binds if accepted, often with a time limit  _(ep 1)_
 - **flat price** — the full outright price level  _(ep 1)_
 - **hit** — your bid was taken by a seller  _(ep 1)_
 - **lifted** — your offer was taken by a buyer  _(ep 1)_
@@ -17,9 +23,13 @@ Units, conventions and desk expressions, accumulated as the show introduces them
 - **metric tonne** — 2,204.6 lb, the grain trading weight unit outside the US  _(ep 1)_
 - **month codes** — F G H J K M N Q U V X Z for January through December, the Z is December  _(ep 1)_
 - **offer** — the price a seller will accept  _(ep 1)_
+- **point** — one hundredth of a cent per pound, how softs desks count moves  _(ep 1)_
 - **point (softs)** — one hundredth of a cent per pound, so up 300 points means up 3 cents  _(ep 1)_
 - **prompt** — the nearby month or shipment window, ready to move now  _(ep 1)_
 - **short ton** — 2,000 lb, used by US soybean meal, about 10 percent lighter than a metric tonne  _(ep 1)_
 - **tick** — smallest price increment, a quarter cent per bushel in Chicago grains, worth 12.50 dollars per lot  _(ep 1)_
+- **WASDE** — the USDA monthly World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates report  _(ep 1)_
 - **washed out** — offsetting trades cancel each other and only the price difference is settled  _(ep 1)_
+- **washout** — cancelling two offsetting physical contracts by settling the price difference instead of shipping  _(ep 1)_
+- **work** — leave an order resting with a broker  _(ep 1)_
 - **work an order** — leave an order resting at your price and wait  _(ep 1)_

package/package.json

@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 {
   "name": "@sdelsad/commodity-desk-daily",
-  "version": "1.0.8",
+  "version": "1.0.9",
   "description": "Commodity Desk Daily - Ep 1: The Units and the Language of the Desk",
   "license": "CC-BY-4.0",
   "keywords": [