Balancing Commodity Headlines with Data for Karen Braun

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[Paul Yeager] Hello everybody. I'm Paul Yeager. Welcome to the MToM podcast. This is a second recording that we're doing on the road as part of a special episode we did with Ted Seifried as part of our 50th season celebration, and we had an opportunity to have one more conversation from that day, and she's with us now - Karen Braun is with Reuters Open interest and covering commodities is something you do, I would say, on a day to day basis, but really it's minute by minute. You're pretty busy there at Reuters, covering commodities.

[Braun] Yeah. It's been you know, I feel like ever since, you know, really I don't know, the trade war in 2018. I just feel like every year something different has happened, you know, with the pandemic and then with the commodity price spike and the drought and, you know, now we're back in another trade war. I mean, it just kind of never really lets up.

[Yeager] Well, let's get into all that, that heavy stuff. Let's talk about light. Which is harder to cover, the commodities or Olympic gymnastics?

[Braun] Oh, wow. Actually, I was a lot more nervous covering the Olympics because I'm not a sports reporter, and I had to learn how to be a sports reporter at the Olympics. And that was kind of scary. But, you know, knowing gymnastics so well is the reason they had me there. And so it just came naturally. And just being there and seeing everyone, it was amazing.

[Yeager] How did it come about?

[Braun] It was awesome. And the best part of it was, at the very end, I unexpectedly got a one on one TV interview with Simone Biles for Reuters TV's. That was not expected and it was so awesome. And just kind of check the box, like, just completely like ice the cake. It was amazing. Paris was awesome.

[Yeager] And covering an Olympics, for those who don't understand, it is long days, controlled days to an extent. And you can't just wander around right? You are kind of stuck to a two by two square.

[Braun] That's right. And people ask me, oh, did you eat a lot of fun stuff in Paris? I mean, I would take, you know, a little pre-made wrap to the arena because you're there for, you know, ten, 12 hours not getting out till, you know, 11:00 at night. And, and, you know, the press seats that Reuters had were amazing, like, right. I mean, I could see everything every single day. But, you know, you're there in the training, you're there in the qualifying, you're there in the finals or they're the team finals. You know, it's just day in, day out and it's a long haul. But for someone like me, just who has been loving gymnastics since I was three years old, is just a dream come true.

[Yeager] Were you a gymnast?

[Braun] Yes.

[Yeager] So not just love, but you were one, correct?

[Braun] And I still technically am, I guess. But, you know, age does limit some of the things, but, I think once a gymnast, always a gymnast, and, I guess I kind of still feel like one.

[Yeager] So what event is your favorite balance beam?

[Braun] Okay. By far the best balance beam. I just have a good, I guess, sense of balance. And it's actually really easy. It's an easier event. People don't think that, but, the skills don't require a lot of strength or a lot of power. It's just. Do you have the guts to go throw the skill on the beam? Okay? And just trust yourself. And that's kind of what it is. And it just kind of became my little niche.

[Yeager] And is there any correlation between covering commodities and covering gymnastics?

[Braun] You know, I would say that when I had to come up with, interesting pieces on the gymnast or on the competition or what unfolded, some of my analytical skills that I use doing commodities, you know, it was like, okay, well, how many medals does this country have or that country have just some of the statistics are like, you know, it's been however many competitions since somebody fell in the beam finals or something. You know, just baseball stats. You know, that's kind of what we do in commodity markets. And so, you know, that analytical mindset helped a lot in Paris.

[Yeager] I would imagine. So where are you from originally?

[Braun] I am from Naperville, Illinois. So it's a suburb west of Chicago.

[Yeager] And at what point did you, I don't know, the last time I was in Naperville I didn't see many farms there. So where did you get the agriculture bug? 

[Braun] So they are now. I don't know. I think you got to drive maybe an hour to really get to, you know, full on, corn and soybean fields. But, yeah, when I was growing up, there were still. There were still corn fields on the edge of town. So Naperville has come a long way, and it's spread out. It's spreading west.

[Yeager] And so then was it you always wanted to do commodities, go to college for it?

[Braun] No. So I went to school for meteorology. I have an undergraduate degree in meteorology, and I chased tornadoes for my master's thesis, in Oklahoma. So, I actually just, you know, I needed a job, but I also wanted to do something that marries weather and commodity or commodity equity market society. Something something that's not being on TV or being a weather service forecaster or being in academia. That's not for me. And so, naturally, agriculture or commodities, is kind of a great fit for that because weather expertise is always needed in this field. And so I learned how to be a crop analyst. Actually, I started in April of 2012. So I'm sure some of the people remember that time, an interesting time for someone to be thrown into knowing absolutely nothing. And seeing, you know, the corn crop that year in the US thinking, well, gosh, you know, I didn't count any ears in that field. Is this normal? I don't know, it was a very interesting time to get into it. But I was thrown right in in 2012 and learned everything from the ground up.

[Yeager] Have you always been based in Chicago?

[Braun] No. So I, for the most part, yes. I moved to Colorado for about four years and I was working from home, you know, for Reuters there. But I've been back in Illinois for a little over three years now.

[Yeager] So in a way, Colorado gave you a little bit of a different perspective of how the Grain Belt looks from the outside, then to and maybe then once you're back in it, because it is totally different when you're in Chicago versus Colorado and about it.

[Braun] Well, either way, both are really great locations to, launching points to actually get out in the field because we can not sitting in our office in Chicago or in Colorado or anywhere, really get a gauge on things when you're not out there seeing what, you know, what we've been talking about and talking to farmers, you know, looking at the soils, looking at the crops and, doing that for me, you know, I go on the crop tour every year. Doing that for me is so important because it gives me perspective as to what I'm actually doing and what the numbers that I'm calculating actually look like in real life.

[Yeager] What I was gonna bring up crop tour, because that's kind of how Ted, you two are connected in doing crop tours. Well, I talked to Ted about this over the years. How many crop tours have you been on?

[Braun] So my first was in 2012, and I missed two years. So I think I'm on 11 years? And if I go this year, it'll be my 12th year. And I've gone on the West leg every single time.

[Yeager] So has that provided you consistent ways of knowing how things have looked in the past on that Western leg?

[Braun] More than you know, I actually now request the same route every year. And my driver, Sherman, he knows where we're going. And, but it's great because I can go back and I can look at, you know, the average car yield that, you know, day two that we did last year or the year before the year or for the year before it, I have a huge database put together and I can immediately see I can call up pictures on my phone from like, this area last year, and I can see what it looks like, and that when you have like a ten year, you know, not only mental, but then, you know, physical and statistical history, it means something. And so, you know, stopping that would be, I think, very stressful for me. I just gotta keep going. There's gotta keep setting me and letting me go.

[Yeager] In following your work, it's obvious that that is at the core of what you do. At least I have noticed the scientific. I didn't know that you've been on the exact same leg, but with the scientists training that you have, that totally now aligns with things. So there is some science to commodities in your mind. Yes.

[Braun] Absolutely. I think that being able to see things, you know, being able to take kind of complex ideas or maybe even just flashy numbers and being able to break them down, like, what do they mean, put context around them? I think that sometimes, you know, with the news, we lose that wider context. You know, a news article, a headline, you know, something that moves the market. It's like, is that really important? Or, you know, we've seen this before or is this actually really rare? And so I think having that very objective, analytical, approach really allows you to give that context to the news. So I like to say, you know, people ask me what I do, it's like I'm giving context to the news in a way. I'm telling you, how important is this one thing that we're talking about right now, or is it rare? Is it not rare? And that's where my analytical background is so key.

[Yeager] I will say what we try to do on the TV show is some of that. Because yes, a headline can move things. That can be an easy thing to talk about. But for us with a weekly show, it provides a different look. Do you wish you could only file a story once a week?

[Braun] I mean, maybe I could have more time to, you know, go out and do other things, but, but no, I mean, you know, yeah, every week, you never really can plan when you're in this role. I mean, we all know in this business. No, you don't really know what you're going to be talking about next week. You can't plan what you're going to really write about on the next several days, because something's going to come up that you have to address. Especially now with just how just unexpected and uncertain things are. You know, you never know when you're going to have to, you know, look into, you know, a trade war with this one country that we now suddenly have to talk about and talk about all those trade statistics, like things like that. I mean, and that stuff pops up, just got to be ready to react and just kind of that same analytical but very objective approach to everything and just always making sure there's context and that there is, you know, just I just don't like to have any kind of bias because at the end of the day, for me, I just, I just, I just want to provide people with the insight that I don't think that a lot of the news can bring because, you know, they do have a word limit. They can't explain everything. And so I'm there to do that. I'm there to fill in that gap.

[Yeager] It's go back to the word bias. Do you, you're not talking political bias, are you? Talking someone from a bias of someone who buys and sells commodities, someone who grows commodities? You're thinking of a larger picture?

[Braun] I'm thinking of just bias in general, just, you know, because you can get wrapped up in, you know, when when the market's really bullish, you know, you can get wrapped up in, you know you're only seeing these bullish factors. Right. And so you know you want to talk about them. You want to get excited about them. But in those times I'm often looking at the other side like the why should somebody bearish of this time you know and I'm always looking at both sides. So I mean bias in a very in a very broad sense. Like you just want to make sure that you've looked at all of the you've looked at all the pieces and you're not just cherry picking. I mean, I, a lot of times think, oh, you know, let me test this. Like, I think I could write about this, like, this is causing this. And then I go do some research and I'm like, actually, it was the other way around. But that's interesting because you find something, right? And you uncover something and you can tell everyone about it. And I think that that's learning, that's well.

[Yeager] I've recorded with Ted before on a Friday afternoon and we'll finish at 330. And in that hour that we've been in the studio, something dramatically changes in trade right now, we could say we're doing this interview in three weeks later it'll be released. They'll be who knows how many headlines there'll be happen knowing that, how does someone make sense of finding good, accurate information or making sense of headlines or market movements in the trade environment that we're in right now?

[Braun] Oh my goodness. Well, it is tough because there's a lot of stuff out there. There's a lot of noise. I would say. I mean, you really could follow me on Twitter. We call it X. I am very, very I am very anal about the data I put out in making sure it's 100% right, because it's so easy to mess up something. It's easy. We all make mistakes, little, you know, errors here and there. You know, we've added an extra number. But, you know, finding those people that really have the attention to detail and they can show you, you know, just really quickly and easily what you're looking for and hopefully without errors. You know, knock on wood, obviously, but, but no, I just think that, you know, keeping up with the news every day, just reading, you know, whatever newsletter anyone subscribes to, you know, whatever people are talking about on Twitter X, just kind of keeping up with that and listening to the, to the podcast. I mean, I listen to a lot of, agricultural radio shows. 

[Yeager] How do you have time to do that, given everything you just said? Seriously?

[Braun] I do it when I'm cooking. I'm cooking. I'm at the store. Yeah, I'm going for a walk. I'm. I'm working out. I'll listen to a podcast, you know, not to necessarily learn something new, but what are people talking about today? What are some of the ideas that are out there? And I think that that kind of gives you good guidance as to, you know, what do I need to be paying attention to?

[Yeager] All right. In the last moments here, I want to ask, again, we can't know what the future holds six months, a year from now, but is the crop in Russia really not that good? Is the China crop not as good? Is it super big in South America? And how does that matter to someone in America?

[Braun] Yeah. You know, I think it's interesting because over the years I've talked to a lot of U.S. producers who, you know, ask me, you know, one thing about the markets and, you know, where do I think things are going? And, you know, I'll mention something about Brazil or China, and they'll say, oh, well, you know, oh, I don't know, not so much recently, but I would say a few years ago, you know, what? Should I pay attention to the current crop in Brazil? Yes, yes. Because actually now two years ago, they actually were the top corn exporter over the US. And you know, back, you know, ten years ago, actually 20, however many years ago, no one ever thought that would happen. But here we are. And so, so I think that, you know, making sure that you're looking outside the United States, of course. And so that's partly what I do as well, is that I've got, you know, we've got bureaus. Reuters has bureaus in, you know, all around the world, and they're covering the local stories there. And, and so, so yeah, I mean, this year we are looking at, you know, Brazil's corn crop coming back. We're looking at Argentina's crops bouncing back. We're looking at, you know, possible drought, heat wave in China and then maybe buying some. We may maybe starting again and then, you know, Russia's crops always, you know, I mean that's the big player in the wheat market.

[Yeager] So how do you get accurate information from governments that don't necessarily have a history of providing accurate information?

[Braun] You don't get it from the USDA. I mean, that's just the straight answer. Like you don't you're not going to go China does released numbers. And it's you know, unless you speak Mandarin, understand, it's hard to disseminate. So that's why, you know, the bureau, the Reuters news bureau, in Beijing, you know, they will put out the pertinent, you know, trade data that China publishes.

[Braun] But but really, honestly, the USDA has their attached offices all over the world, and they do provide really consistent stuff, for a lot of these major producing areas. And so, you know, they write up a complete report and you can read about what's going on. And, and so that's, that's really important, I think for the market especially, you know, I don't. I don't speak all these languages and I can't get into the websites. And you know it's hard but yeah, the USDA and the and they're doing it all in a consistent way. So it's, so it's nice to have that kind of global baseline, with data that's easy to access and yeah.

[Yeager] It's a lot.

[Braun] It's a lot. It is a lot.

[Yeager] You know, and I appreciate you sitting for all these crazy questions about gymnastics. And I would be remiss if I didn't mention your corn clip.

[Braun] Oh, yeah. Yeah.

[Yeager] That is awesome. Where did that come from? Please tell me, Mitchell, South Dakota.

[Braun] I got it in Wilmington, North Carolina. Actually, last month I was at my cousin's wedding and we were wander around the town, a little shop that had all these little flips and one little corn sitting there, and I'm like, that's coming home with me.

[Yeager] That's awesome. All right. Karen Braun of Reuters Open Interest. Thank you so much for your time here today.

[Braun] Appreciate it. Thank you so much for having me.

[Yeager] And thank you for watching this installment of the MToM podcast. New episodes come out each and every Tuesday on audio and video form. Subscribe wherever you get your podcast. If you have any feedback for me, send it in an email. Market to Market at Iowa pbs.org. Thanks for watching.