Porky prices running high

SALES COMMENTARY NOT RESEARCH

Welcome to my Friday email where I ramble on about how much I know and don’t know about things agri, sport and life. As always, the views expressed are mine.

Some rain around NSW last week with Coonamble topping the regions with 4 inches. From Wagga to Tamworth there was 30-75mms of rain. Unfortunately it didn’t make it to the west.

In a stock market sense the rain should be positive for ELD and NUF. It should be enough rain for farmers to get the tractor started and hitch up the plough and seeder.

The lack of rain has helped Select Harvest with their almond harvest this year. They announced this week an upgrade to their numbers with good crop yields, strong pricing and a low AUD more than offsetting the increased cost of water. The market went nuts and the stock put on 9% for the week.

After years of acquisitions of businesses like malt and bulk liquid terminals and oils, it seems the board and management of GNC have decided that it’s all too hard and they will sell them off again or demerge them. If I sound cynical than yes I am. It’s the same over at Woolies. After years of growing into new categories, like petrol, hardware and Big W, they are now keen to flog off anything that underperforms. I just don’t understand big cap stocks..!! 

My sources are telling me to stock up on bacon and ham. The price of little porkers is running higher as African swine fever grips China and has also been detected in Belgium. China produces 50% of the world’s pigs so prices are set to move up. However farmer incomes might be held back by high grain prices.

As the campaigning begins for the federal election, spare a thought for the “wantabees” at the NRMA. NSW’s so called peak motoring group came out this week and said all petrol and diesel car sales should be banned from 2025 onwards… given that currently only about 1% of car sales are electric, this could be a hard task. Not to mention the fact that the electric ones cost too much and there aren’t enough charging stations..!! And then 3 of the top 5 biggest selling cars are diesel dual cab 4WD’s..!!