Tuesday, March 9, 2010

Soybean Crush: Doing The Math

Please correct me if I'm wrong. Anyone.

A bushel of soybean is approximately 60 pounds.

A bushel of soybean yields approximately 48 pounds of protein rich soybean meal (80 percent) and 11 pounds of crude soybean oil (18 percent).

Assuming $9.39/bu of soybean, $257/T of soymeal, $0.3975/lb of soyoil and 1 tonne = 2204.62262 pounds (Closing of March 9 2010 eCBOT before floor trading)

Price of soybean + crush cost = (($0.1166/lb of soymeal) x 48lb) + (($0.3975/lb soyoil) x 11lb) = $5.56 + $4.38

~~ Soymeal yield higher percentage from crush but is cheaper on pound to pound comparison with soyoil. However, per bushel crush, soymeal still generate higher revenue than soyoil.

Monday, March 8, 2010

Youth and Age

“In youth we learn; in age we understand.”

~~ Marie Von Ebner-Eschenbach quotes (Austrian novelist, 1830-1916)

Friday, March 5, 2010

Can you get out of a debt crisis by piling on another layer of debt?

The answer, of course, is that “it depends.” Replacing corporate and mortgage debt with a government checkbook is initially beneficial because the sovereign is assumed to be more creditworthy than its private market serfs. It taxes, it prints, it confiscates wealth if need be and so this substitution is medicinal in the early stages of a financial crisis aftermath – especially if debt/GDP levels are low to begin with. That is the case currently at most G7 countries, with the exception of Japan, although the balance sheets of Germany/France are obviously contaminated by its weaker EU members, and that of the U.S. by its Agencies and other off-balance-sheet liabilities. But based on existing deficit trends and the expectation that not much progress will be made in reducing them, markets are raising interest rates on sovereign debt issuance either in anticipation of higher future inflation, increased levels of credit risk, or both. This places a potential “cap” on the “debt” that supposedly can be created to get out of the “debt crisis.”

Government bailouts and guarantees such as those evidenced and envisioned in Dubai and Greece, as well as those for the last 18 months with banks and large industrial corporations across the globe, suggest a more homogeneous “unicredit” type of bond market. If core sovereigns such as the U.S., Germany, U.K., and Japan “absorb” more and more credit risk, then the credit spreads and yields of these sovereigns should look more and more like the markets that they guarantee. The Kings, in other words, in the process of increasingly shedding their clothes, begin to look more and more like their subjects. Kings and serfs begin to share the same castle.

~~ Bill Gross, PIMCO

Thursday, March 4, 2010

From Going To And Fro In The Earth

From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it. There are always two camps in the market: the bulls with glad tidings and the bears with calamity messages.

Tuesday, March 2, 2010

The Need To Evolve

There will always be newcomers to attack you from the bottom. To survive, you must evolve.

~~ Garry Kasparov

Thursday, February 25, 2010

Quick-Sink Method?


The human body has a density of 62.4 pounds per cubic foot (1 g/cm3) and is able to float on water. Quicksand is denser than water -- it has a density of about 125 pounds per cubic foot (2 g/cm3) -- which means you can float more easily on quicksand than on water.

The key is to not panic.

Most people who drown in quicksand, or any liquid for that matter, are usually those who panic and begin flailing their arms and legs. Most likely, if you fall in, you will float to the surface. However, the sand-to-water ratio of quicksand can vary, causing some quicksand to be less buoyant.The worst thing to do is to thrash around in the sand and move your arms and legs through the mixture. You will only succeed in forcing yourself farther down into the liquid sandpit.

The best thing to do is to make slow movements and bring yourself to the surface, then just lie back. You'll float to a safe level. When someone steps in the quicksand, their weight causes them to sink, just as they would if they stepped in a pond. If they struggle, they'll tend to sink. But, if they relax and try to lay on their back, they can usually float and paddle to safety. When you try pulling your leg out of quicksand, you are working against a vacuum left behind by the movement.

~~ HowStuffWorks

The need to act or response drastically (and in a big way) seems to be the first chosen option whenever we got stuck in a sticky situation. Most of the time, it does more harm than good.

Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Sticking To Old Plan


Will Coyote eventually succeed if he would have stick to his original plan and continue to improvise it rather than coming up with a whole new plan all the time?

Click-A-Doo

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