Dana Mantini

Senior Market Analyst
Dana Mantini

Dana Mantini is a senior market analyst for DTN, and has 30-plus years of experience in the commodity futures industry.

Dana began as a wheat buyer and cash grain merchandiser for major flour millers, General Mills and International Multifoods. He was an independent member of the Kansas City Board of Trade, and spent 15 years as a broker/trader there. He has been hedge desk manager at Koch Industries (Koch Ag), and a commodity broker for Prudential Securities in Kansas City. He joined DeBruce Grain in 2001 as the Hedge Desk Manager, and did all of the futures/options trading, all of the hedging, spreading and initiated and managed a new farm contract program. Facilitated multiple farmer outlook meetings each year. DeBruce Grain managed 140 million bushels of storage capacity, and had 10-consecutive record-profit years before Gavilon acquired DeBruce in late 2010. Dana moved to Omaha in July 2012 to join Gavilon, first as a proprietary futures/options trader and then worked with Gavilon Producer Solutions, writing three times daily market wires, and advising producers on marketing.

It was the love of analyzing, interpreting, educating and writing that drove me to the open analyst position at DTN.

Dana graduated from Amherst College with a major in Economics, where he played baseball and basketball.

He is married to Ruthanne -- a certified pilates instructor -- and has two daughters -- Anna, 19 (sophomore at UNL), and Maggie, 16, (junior at Marian HS).

Recent Blogs by Author

More From This Author

  • The chart above is a daily chart of December corn futures showing a potential bull flag chart pattern, suggesting more strength ahead. (DTN ProphetX chart)

    Technically Speaking

    December corn got a boost from the July WASDE and USDA Crop Production reports Friday. While corn has had ample reason to rally from the lows with heat and dryness in the U.S. Corn Belt, the extreme heat impacting the EU corn...

  • This chart shows Kansas City September wheat futures moving modestly higher following bullish acreage data. (DTN ProphetX chart)

    USDA Reports Review

    USDA's June Acreage and Grain Stocks reports were largely uneventful. Wheat stole the spotlight with record-low acreage of 42.7 million acres, while corn and soybean figures came in near pre-report expectations.

  • The chart above is a daily chart of July soybean futures, which really gives no hint as to which direction it will take. (DTN ProphetX chart)

    Technically Speaking

    Over the next several weeks, spot July soybean futures could move in either direction with both bullish and bearish factors likely to assure continued volatility in the weeks and months ahead. Iran, China and large speculators could...