Managing risk in a volatile market

The cattle market has seen big swings in recent weeks, making it even more important for producers to protect their investments.

Jackie Moore the owner of the Joplin Regional Stockyards in Missouri, one of the largest sale barns in the country, says market volatility makes risk management more challenging. "This environment that we're trading in right now is rough," he says. "It's hard to know what to do."

He tells Brownfield, "Greed and fear drive the market."

Moore says producers have to take the emotion out of selling cattle. "You really need someone who doesn't have any cattle to do it," he says. "Some to reach the charts, who knows the technical side of it. We all know the fundamentals, we're just not great at the technical side. If you're going to trade the market and you're going to hedge some cattle up, going to buy the market, or buy some puts or do some LRPs, you almost need somebody out there that's helping you that don't have an emotional tie to it."