Nov. 17—As Thanksgiving neared, the DDGS market felt as though it was feeling the effects of the season. After following the Chicago Board of Trade's downward trend and reacting to a late start to the cooler fall weather, the market appeared to becoming firmer. Generally, plants sell more wet cake to feedlots in the fall and winter, and are looking to buy back previously sold railcars to capture those premiums. The longevity of a major, multi-plant producer is in doubt, and those that were betting on the tonnage from that group of plants are starting to scramble a bit.

The barge market, which for a while was at parity to the California market, is now trading at a $20-plus discount, due to a slackening export demand and a sharp drop in barge freight. Feed wheat is plentiful around the world, and, along with the dollar's strength, is hampering U.S. grain exports. The Canadian market, a strong demand pull for the past year, has significantly lightened with successful barley and wheat crops.

Going forward, as grain producers put the crop away and distillers grains supplies stay in doubt, we are back to who needs to buy first. This generally favors the seller, but with a significant amount of corn yet to be harvested amid reports of sizeable yields, sellers must take care to ensure they do not place themselves completely in the spot market. Whether scaling up or down, selling will be the prudent feature going ahead.