Sort & Cull

Torn Over Punxsutawney Phil

John Harrington
By  John Harrington , DTN Livestock Analyst

When Mike Gmoser, the prosecutor in southwestern Ohio's Butler County, took the trouble to indict Punxsutawney Phil for purposely, and with prior calculation and design, causing the people to believe that spring would come early, it told me more about him than the scheming intent of a stupid ground hog.

First of all, Mr. Gmoser is just not a very busy guy. Either that or the crime rate in Cincinnati has suddenly taken a nosedive, leaving local jails as thinly populated as the Tom Vilsack fan club.

Furthermore, his office is clearly not worried about public layoffs linked to the sequester. I mean, there's a reason why meat inspectors and air traffic controllers have been struggling to suppress their natural inclination to bring the funny.

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Having said that, something tells me to set up a defense fund for poor Phil, a fellow prognosticator now angrily besieged by the same shivering mob that only six weeks ago were begging the clueless rodent for advice.

For some reason, there's something about a "shoot the messenger" policy that make me nervous. Go figure.

Sadly, when you think about it, market analysts sometimes seem like nothing more than overeducated ground hogs. If Phil had an MBA in statistical analysis and could skate around charting software, he could move headquarters from Punxsutawney to Wall Street in a heartbeat.

Alas, spring would still be late.

http://www.feelofthemarket.com/…

(AG)

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MAURICE STRAW
3/31/2013 | 9:17 PM CDT
It's magical! The USDA just found 3 BILLION dollars worth of corn hidden under a rock somewhere. While farm bins are empty or are at least severely depleted as result of the most serious drought in many years, it seems more like a ploy to control prices than to report the truth. It seems strange that just when corn and bean prices had staged a seasonal rally indicating the market held a bullish promise on Thursday the 28 of March, a market report was released stating that there was an increased inventory of corn of 400 MILLION bushel. As a farmer, I am very skeptical that these reports may in fact be more of an economic ploy to keep the price of grain down.