2023-24 Harvest Updates, page-9

Despite Gary Gardner's on-the-ground research, plus that of 'HC' rural stalwarts Portsmouth and stayer, and Till Lindemann as well, we still have some analysts making exaggerated negative one-size-fits-all comments.

No doubt this Katie Hudson from Yarra Capital Management enjoys a fat 'pay cheque' plus perhaps a bonus or two, but that doesn't mean she's correct 100 per cent of the time. It's reasonable to suggest agriculture can't boom ad infinitum - for instance, other nations may have great grain harvests as some are allegedly at present, and in theory this might continue to push the price of grains down - but she doesn't differentiate in a 'lively' blog article and say anything about how GNC is a handler with its finger in many pies:

Sectors to avoid

Chris Conway: And the other side of that, Katie, which sectors are you avoiding right now?

Katie Hudson: So there's an alarming number of sectors where they're still over-earning and we are really trying to avoid those parts of the market. We think there needs to be an earning step down before we'd be interested. So to call some of those out... Agriculture has had a good few years, conditions have been great, and commodity prices have been great as well. So we think that needs to come back.

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I am unsurprised many private investors who carefully research individual stocks can do better percentage wise in many years than these analysts.

It's early in the season but all I can humbly suggest is to dismiss Gary Gardner's apposite comments out of hand might be a big mistake. Even though I'm a city dweller, I am (vaguely!) aware that soil moisture levels are one of the most important factors for agricultural success.

Why would one "avoid" investing in GNC at present? As Portsmouth said about three months ago, at the time GNC had near certainty of being busy with shipping stems for the next 18 months. Even if a few sailings are cancelled due to alleged lower demand for Australian grains as one article I read was implying, it's unlikely to be disastrous. The Ukrainian-Russian situation remains perilous: the Black Sea 'safe passage' for grain and other items has been extended for 60 days from mid-March 2023 according to Russia, but 120 days according to Ukraine. The two sides can't even agree on detail like this.