Pat Bowe
Analyst · Stephens. Your line is open
Sure, Ben. Yes. Lots of good stuff to unfold there. So we've had really good opportunities for our Trade Group and our merchandising team has just done an outstanding job capturing both those increased margins for each of our product lines. This is across a wide range of different products across the feed ingredients space in the U.S. as well as exports. We think those margins will remain strong. It's very interesting times to trade at an inverted market or a tighter S&D. We have a lot of experienced traders who know how to do just that. So I think that creates some good opportunities for us. We just put behind us, the wheat harvest, the soft red wheat harvest. We had a little bit more damage than what you would normally see because of late rains, but the volume was good, and that was good for us and we were able to put some of that wheat into the bins. And so some carriers come back to the cash markets for soft red wheat and a little bit into the nearby corn markets. Overall, I think the exciting part that we see is crop conditions that are tributary to elevators in our regions where we have assets are all in really good shape. As we know, up in the plains there has been some dryness in the Dakotas and Minnesota and some other parts of the grain belt that may hold us back from hitting really good production. But in the Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, Illinois, our good spots are really good. We're underway in harvest right now in Louisiana and have a good harvest coming off there, which is the first corn kind of coming out this year, which is kind of exciting. You made a very good point, Ben, though, I want to remind the analysts, we had a really good fourth quarter last year. If you recall, because of the lack of carry, we shipped an extremely high amount of soybeans out in the fourth quarter. It had a really good fourth quarter. So we see we'll have a -- I think we have a good chance of having a very comparable quarter or second half to the year, I should say, second half overall to last year with potential to exceed it if things go away. But if we had a real strong quarter that matched last year, we'd be very happy with that. As we know, up in the plains has been some dryness in North Dakota and Minnesota and some other parts of the grain belt that may hold us back from hitting really good production. But in the Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, Illinois, our good spots are really good. We're underway in harvest right now in the Louisiana and have a good harvest coming off there which is the first one kind of coming out this year which is kind of exciting. You made a very good point than though I want to remind the analysts we had a really good fourth quarter last year. If you recall because of the lack of carry, we shipped an external high amount of soybeans out in the fourth quarter. It had a really good fourth quarter. So, we see we'll have a think we'll have a good chance of having a very comparable quarter of second half of the year, should say second half overall to last year with potential to exceed it if things go away. But if we had a real strong quarter than March last year, we'd be very happy with that.