[PAUL YEAGER] Welcome back to the table for the Friday, October 23rd, 2026 installment of the Ever Calm Chris.

What got into you, man?

[CHRIS ROBINSON] These markets have me fired up.

[YEAGER] Okay, let me just say for the record, there are times I have talked to you about you preach to the choir, you get on the tables, I'll set you up to say.

Say it louder.

For the people in the back of the congregation.

What are you the most wound up about this week?

[ROBINSON] What am I most.

[YEAGER] What do you most wound up?

What has you going the most?

[ROBINSON] I just think the whole idea now that people feel like that they've missed a big opportunity and now there's they're going to completely do an ostrich and do nothing for the next six months.

So yeah, we had a great rally.

If you took advantage of it, good.

There's still a lot of marketing year ahead of us.

We're still better off than we were at the beginning of the year.

We started the.

So, I'm glass half full.

How's that?

So many upset people right now.

I just mentioned to you, even with beans a dollar off their highs, we're still $2 higher than where we started the year.

Even with corn at what, 460 today?

That's $0.40 higher than where we were at 425.

So, I granted, it's not whatever people were being promised earlier in the year, you know, whatever the high prices were, I get it when you don't when you when you think that's possible and you don't get it, it's painful.

But I would say that glass half full and there's a lot of opportunity ahead of us.

[YEAGER] Okay, hold on one more before I get you going on one topic, I need you to define something for me.

You mentioned during the television show and those who sit in your chair mention certain terms.

You checked commitment of traders report.

What is the relationship between the commitment of those who trade and the funds?

[ROBINSON] Okay, so I'm specifically talking about managed speculative funds because there are two types of funds.

And when you get the commitment of traders, they break it down into commercials, which are, you know, the Cargills and people of the world.

Then they also break down large traders, and then they also break down the index funds.

Now there are index funds.

They just buy and hold.

So, when they talk about the Goldman roll or the Rogers roll, those guys, it's a they buy commodities as an inflation hedge and all they ever do is roll, roll, roll.

So, they're always long.

So, they're kind of a non-factor except for when they roll.

The speculative funds are people like you might have read about them like Richard Dennis or, you know, Paul Tudor Jones or George Soros, or they've got people have given them money and they say, here's $100,000, make you $1 million.

All they do is look for opportunities to trade.

All they want to do is be on the right side of the move.

They are like sharks in the water.

They will be long or they will be short.

All they want to do is make money.

They do not have.

And this is please.

They do not have a bias, good or bad, towards farmers or producers.

They really don't.

They are playing in your commodity and it's good or bad.

When we had the type of rally we had earlier this year where corn went from 425 to 550, that was largely due to a lot of those guys.

They bought a bunch of corn, and if they had stayed long, maybe we'd be at $7.

I mean, they love to see corn.

They don't care as long as they're making money.

But when you get to bad reports from the USDA, they do not ride losers.

And they will out, out, out.

And that's why it's so painful to watch corn.

You know, it takes.

There's an old expression.

It takes.

You go up the escalator.

And you go down the elevator shaft.

And that's why it's.

It's the worst part about being in a business where you're your livelihood depends on the price of a commodity, because commodities don't trade like stocks.

So, they are a necessary evil.

They provide liquidity.

They're not there to hurt you.

And that's why I'll leave you with this the next time it happens where they're all along and they're helping you with two and three year highs in prices, take advantage of it.

Take advantage of their greed because they don't stick around when things turn and vice versa.

They may get to the point we were talking about Lean hogs, their record short, their bet short.

At some point hogs are going to turn.

They're going to have to buy all that back.

And that's going to be producers opportunity.

And so, it's like kind of watching those.

You ever watch TV where those people serve the they surf the 110 foot waves.

That's kind of like what it's out there.

If you're trading grains and you're on the wrong side of one of these funds moves, it's very, very painful.

It's very, very frightening.

I've been there.

I've been run over, I get it.

So that's why I filed away.

Next time we get good prices, take advantage of it.

[YEAGER] So that's the basis for the next question.

Okay.

Scott in Iowa has the question that many others have.

Does anybody believe the corn numbers?

[ROBINSON] Okay.

I'm going to say this.

This may upset some people.

It doesn't matter.

It does not matter what you believe.

It does not.

What matters is what the market is.

And that's the beauty of the market.

We don't have a grains are saying the prices should be here.

We.

The market is.

Every buyer and every seller on the whole planet has access.

And that's what we come up with this price.

And it's a good thing.

It's a bad thing.

The problem is it's a violent experience when we reprice.

So, it's I like I said, I've been doing this now for the better part of three decades, a little over three decades now.

And there's nothing there's no better feeling than being on the right side of the market when it moves violently.

But there's no worse feeling.

And so that's that.

Hopefully that answers that question.

[YEAGER] You can think what you like, but the market is trading the number.

[ROBINSON] The only thing that matters.

At the end of the day, it's a zero sum game.

Every bull and every bear, everybody gets a statement at that night.

And then tomorrow is another day.

So.

It's good news.

It's good news.

Bad news.

It's nice to know exactly what this is.

Now here's the flip side of that is it's the reason you can go out and price corn four years from now, three years from now.

If you really wanted to.

You know, that's the reason this whole business was set up because back in the 1800s, if you showed up on Tuesday, you got $4 for your corn.

If you showed up the following Tuesday, you got nothing and you didn't get to buy anything at Sears Roebuck for your family.

You had to go back home with nothing.

So, this was all created to lay risk off on somebody else.

So, the reason we have these markets, somebody is willing to take your risk.

Literally.

You could call up tomorrow and say, I want to sell corn two years from now, at 450 and two years from now, if corn at zero, you will still get 450 for your corn.

Now, if corn is at $8, that's the other side of the risk.

But you are guaranteed that price.

And unless somebody can come up with a better system and you know, it is, it is what it is.

Price discovery, though, is a very, very upsetting experience.

[YEAGER] Well, let's talk about the discovery in another commodity that's not necessarily grain.

This is Stephen, Wisconsin with another question.

And he's asking with grain harvest over the hump and the election around the corner, what direction do you see crude oil going?

[ROBINSON] You tell me what happens in that part of the world.

You know, 3 or 4 months ago, we were back down to 68 bucks in crude oil.

And then things escalated.

They can escalate at the turn of a hat.

So, you tell me what's going to happen, what the elections in 12 days, and then the elections in 12 days.

Then the new Congress is sworn in until January.

Correct?

That's the window I'm worried about, because you've got that window of there's no new Congress yet.

And what's going to happen?

Are we going to watch policy unfold?

Hopefully it goes away.

Hopefully they can get things solved over there.

But I don't know.

I mean, we were talking earlier, you know, I think the all-time high for crude oil is about a buck 48 was back in 2007 2008.

The high on this spike was 119 and change.

So, until we take out 119 and change, we're in this trading range and literally this 110 area is very, very, very key.

But talk about violent price discovery.

If this situation was fixed tomorrow, we'd probably be back down.

You know, we started the year at $55 in crude oil.

People forget that we saw the we started the year with diesel at two bucks.

You know, this is all been because of this geopolitical stuff and it's way above my pay grade to figure out how it's going to get worked out.

But I can tell you one thing, the first thing that's going to move is crude oil.

So, you know, we'll all be watching it together.

[YEAGER] Eugene in Texas, I want to thank you for your question.

Go back to the analysis to see the answer to that one.

So, let's go.

Robbie in Kansas, because here's another market that's had one whale of an up and down.

Feels like the cash live feeder market is finally rallying another run up to the summer highs.

Or is that foolish hope?

[ROBINSON] Well, the summer highs were contract highs.

And I I'm a big.

If you follow my letter or know anything about me, I'm a big technician because I like to look at the numbers.

You talk about opinions.

What do people believe?

What do people think?

That's kind of secondary.

What matters is what the price is.

We had a horrendous sell off in cattle for a number of reasons.

I'm not going to go down that route again, but the nice thing is this recovery, since the tariff low, we've recovered 6,570%.

We're right back up to where we were in July.

So now it's kind of interesting.

The people that were the most upset and, you know, depressed at the bottom.

You're right to be.

Now they're starting to get, oh, gee, maybe we're going to go back to the old highs.

I would say this.

The this has been this is a marketing opportunity for anybody out there, especially if you were lucky enough to, you know, if you bought your animals on the low.

You've just had a tremendous pickup.

And we do have a cattle on feed today.

I haven't seen what it is yet, but, you know, it's been a great rally.

Are we going to get back to the contract highs?

I wish I knew that, but at the end of the day, the problem still remains.

The herds too small.

We're not doing enough heifer retention.

That's not going to go away anytime soon.

[YEAGER] Two quick questions.

What's the best chart right now?

[ROBINSON] I got to tell you, soybeans.

[YEAGER] Which one spot?

[ROBINSON] Soybeans or even next year soybeans.

Look at 2027 soybeans.

But I look at a continuation chart.

You know, go back and look where we were.

We're only $1 off.

Basically, three year highs.

And I'm impressed.

If I'm impressed today, maybe it's because I spent 6 or 7 years standing trading in the bean pit.

But the bean pit, the bean chart is probably the best looking chart right now.

It's had the least damage and what damage I'm talking about.

Okay, so corn basically had a 95 cent rally and gave it all back.

So, they just bludgeoned corn.

The rally that we had in soybeans, it started at 1050.

We're still at 1250 today.

Even after coming back a dollar.

So, what I'm concerned about is don't give back the extra dollar and a half.

If they did come after beans.

So, for now, beans look pretty good.

Okay, that's my opinion about beans.

[YEAGER] Real quick on cotton.

What's the story there?

[ROBINSON] Cotton is you know, they call it the widow maker for a reason.

And it was very, very volatile.

Pull up a chart of wheat and it looks just like cotton.

You did get some good opportunities.

We started the year at $0.66.

We got to over 90.

Most guys need over $0.80 for cotton to make work.

So, you know, I'm not going to mention his name, but my old boss Mark used to like to say the market gives you 1 or 2 opportunities every year to market a profitable levels.

We had that opportunity.

And now I think even at 80 cent cotton, that probably works for a lot of guys.

Is it $0.95 or a dollar, which is what guys are really hoping for?

No, but it's still a lot better than 66.

How's that?

That's my take on that.

[YEAGER] Two sets of scripture readings.

We have the Gospel According to Chris, and we close with the gospel according to Mark.

[ROBINSON] There you go.

[YEAGER] Chris Robinson, great to see you.

Thank you so much.

[ROBINSON] Thank you sir.

[YEAGER] All right.

That's going to do it for Market Plus.

Next week we're going to talk about a landlocked aquaculture operation and how it finds profits in the pond.

And we'll sit here at the table with Brad Matthews to offer commodity market analysis.

Thank you so much for watching.

Have a great week.