Strategy Performance: Why the Market Cycle Matters More Than the Daily Noise
Grain markets rarely move in a straight line. Each day brings a new reason for prices to move: weather, export tenders, currency shifts, fund positioning, politics, crop ratings, geopolitics or fresh rumours from the Black Sea. It is very easy to get caught up in that day-to-day noise.
But for growers, the more important question is not whether the market is up or down today. It is the decisions you make and whether the long-term marketing strategy is working.
We consider this here and compare CRM Agri’s benchmark strategy to UK feed wheat May futures contracts across the past four seasons.
The results highlight a key point: A rigid marketing strategy does not suit today’s markets, understanding the market cycles matters.
When prices are in a declining cycle, forward selling and disciplined price targets should play a much larger role in protecting value. When markets are in a rising cycle, the emphasis changes. The risk is no longer only that prices fall away; it is also that sales are made too early and too heavily before the market has had time to build.
That is why a strategy must be dynamic, avoid panic or cash-flow driven selling and grounded on an acceptance that you are not going to hit the top every time you sell!
It may seem obvious, but our seasonal data highlights why selling for cash or storage is rarely a good plan.
Declining markets reward discipline
The 2022/23, 2023/24, 2024/25 and 2025/26 (just ended) seasons all show periods where the market either trended lower or struggled to sustain rallies. In those environments, doing nothing and waiting for “one more move higher” can quickly become costly.
This is where forward-selling, target driven discipline becomes important. Selling into strength and taking risk off the table can protect an average price before the wider market moves lower. It is not about perfectly predicting the top. It is about recognising the cycle, managing exposure, and avoiding the mistake of allowing every rally to pass by without action, often hoping for a better day!
A good example of this is the 2022 price spike, nobody knew where the top of the market would be, but using rules and price targets enabled us to advise selling 75% of the crop between £250-330/t.
In falling markets, the value of a strategy is often seen after the event. Sales that may have felt cautious at the time can later become the difference between a strong average and being forced to price into a weaker market.
Feed wheat strategy over past 4 seasons - from most recent (harvest 2025)
Rising markets require a different mindset
However, the past 12 seasons of our marketing strategies highlight after a prolonged period of pressure, prices have shown a more constructive pattern, with the market recovering from earlier lows and moving back towards higher levels (low prices cure low prices).
If we are right that the market is now moving into a more constructive period of tightening supplies and steadily increasing prices, the strategy will need to adapt.
This does not mean doing nothing. It means recognising that the balance of risk has changed.
Strategy is more than a price call
Good grain marketing is not built on one forecast, one chart, or one headline. It is built from a combination of tools, experience and judgement.
Our strategy work uses technical analysis, price forecasting, price targets, fund positions, fundamental supply-and-demand analysis, market cycle assessment, cash-flow requirements and prudent risk management to name a few. Each has a role to play. Technical signals can help identify momentum and resistance levels. Fundamentals help explain whether a move is supported by supply, demand, weather or trade flows. Price targets give discipline. Risk management helps prevent one decision from dominating the whole marketing year.
Granted, there’s a lot to consider, which is why we synthesize all these signals into simple sell alerts.
Managing volatility, not reacting to it
The reality of farming is that every business and marketing strategy will not be identical, however all require a framework and have one thing in common: the volatility they face!
Volatility is unavoidable. The aim of a strategy is not to remove it completely, but to manage it and smooth the curves. This means you can ride out the lows with greater confidence.
Markets will always produce noise. Some headlines will matter; most will not. The challenge is to avoid letting short-term volatility dictate long-term decisions. A structured strategy gives growers a framework: where to sell, when to wait, what level of risk is acceptable, and how much of the crop should remain open to future price movement.
That is the difference between reacting to the market and managing the market.
The long-term average is what counts
The strategy results reinforce an important message: individual sales matter, but the average achieved over the season matters more.
Its easy to get distracted by whether each sale was right or wrong one week later. There will always be days when the market moves higher after a sale, and days when it falls after a decision not to sell. That is inevitable. What matters is whether the overall approach consistently improves the average, controls downside risk, and keeps the business aligned with the wider market cycle.
In recent years, declining markets have rewarded forward sales and disciplined target setting. If the cycle is now turning, the strategy must reflect that too.
Our objective remains the same: manage volatility, protect value, and make better-informed decisions across the season — not just based on today’s headline, but on the bigger market cycles (see chart below) and a dynamic plan.
