The Demise and Forecasted Return of Wheat Prices?

To sell or not to sell?  It is the conundrum facing wheat farmers as prices have plummeted late in 2013. Louise Gartner with Spectrum Commodities reflects on some of the infrastructure issues challenging wheat -- especially in the Mid-West.

Gartner: "We struggled to compete late in the year as far as export go largely because of port congestion. The basis levels at the ports have been very high because the capacity has been focused first on soybeans and then corn. Huge crops of course and the trade have used up much of the transportation capacity of rails, cars, barges, export facilities moving corn and soybeans. That should be clearing out -- especially with this issue going on with China with the corn GMOs -- we are probably going to be shipping less corn to China."

Add onto that liquidation across the commodity space from hedge funds to index funds and a huge world wheat crop and it's easy to see all that has contributed to the drop. But what about 2014?

Gartner: "Quite often you get a lot of selling right after the first of the year. And that is obviously for tax reason, so the first couple of weeks are usually weaker in the wheat market for that reason. Then you tend to get the market rallies into late January and early February then you get that February break in mid-to-late February. So I would look for late January-early February for the market to be carving out some kind of a high. Then you start to pull back into mid-February and then you are in to the growing season and it is a whole other ball game."