Corn

Last Friday I spent all day driving to northwestern Iowa and back to bring one of my daughter's home from a camp. Besides just missing a storm that blew through Omaha, we noticed many of the crop fields in high water. It is not news that Iowa has been hit hard by flooding--though the most severe problems are east of where we drove. One thing that I thought of looking at those corn fields was the rising price of corn.

Well it turns out that the dire reports of corn shortages may have been vastly overstated. Today's Wall Street Journal reports that while there has been signficant crop damage, estimates did not account for increased planting this year from last. An innocent mistake. Yet, that misinformation caused the price of corn to skyrocket (and plummet again based on this news).

No doubt in the market there will be winners and losers because of this -- I sure would like to have sold corn short! Still, this kind of news has business people pulling their hair, especially if they insist they can make data certain decisions.