Sell now or store: storage return calculator

Is holding the lot worth it, or has the cost of waiting eaten the gain you expect?

Two revenues per unit compared, with the cost of carrying split into storage, interest on the money left standing, and volume loss.

Currency

Cash price todayPer unit, what you would be paid if you sold today. Example: 1,200 per tonne.

Months you would waitHow many months the lot would stay put from today. Example: 5.

Storage per unit, per monthOnly the lines charged again every month, not intake or dispatch. Example: 6 per tonne per month.

Interest on the money left standing, per month (%)What your money costs or would earn per month: the operating loan rate if you owe, the deposit rate if you do not. Example: 1.2.

Volume loss over the period (%)How much of the weight that went in does not reach the scale on the way out, over the whole period. Example: 1.5.

The five fields above already show what the wait costs and the price that ties. The one below is the only guess on the sheet.

Price you expect on the sale datePer unit, the price you expect on the date you mean to sell. Example: 1,280 per tonne.

The math runs in your browser. We do not send or store anything you type.

Your result

Enter today’s price, the months, the storage, the interest and the loss to see the price from which waiting starts to pay.

Take this lot’s decision away in writing

The report carries your numbers, the cost of carrying line by line, the price that ties, and two scenario tables: one varying the expected price and one varying the months of waiting. It comes out ready to file with the lot’s weight tickets.

ArticleIs it worth waiting to sell?The same calculation, with the three cost lines explained and the biggest one named. And what to do differently on each side of the result.Read the full article

Sell now or store: this lot’s decision

Your inputs

Your result

Calculation trail

What these numbers say

Waiting has three costs per unit, and only one of them arrives as an invoice. The warehouse charges by the month. Money that did not come in today costs interest, whether you owe a bank or simply left it unplaced. And the volume that disappears between intake and dispatch was product that would have been sold at the sale price. The price that ties adds the first two to today’s price and divides by what is left after the loss: it is the price from which waiting starts to pay, and it depends on no guess about the future.

Understand the method in full

The full article explains the three cost lines, names the biggest one, and shows what to do differently on each side of the result.

Read the full article

How to read it

Five of these six numbers come from paperwork the farm already has. The expected price is a guess, and the result is worth what the guess is worth. The price history usually behind it describes a pattern that moves: in Brazilian maize, the months of lowest and highest prices swapped places between 1996-2001 and 2011-2019. This tool recommends neither holding nor selling: it says how far the price has to rise for the wait to pay.

The sources

The cost of holding has three lines and only one of them arrives as an invoice. Enter today’s price, the months, the storage rate, the interest your money costs and the volume loss, and the tool returns the price from which waiting starts to pay. The expected price is optional: without it you already see what the wait costs and the price that ties. Nothing you type is sent or stored.

A lot at 1,200 the tonne, held five months at 6 a tonne a month, with money costing 1.2 percent a month and 1.5 percent going missing, carries a cost of 121.20 a tonne, split into 30 of storage, 72 of interest and 19.20 of loss. A price of 1,280 on the sale date looks like an 80 gain and is not: the wait pays only once the price clears today’s plus the carry.

The carry is what the Purdue analysis of corn storage returns counts against the price gain, and the tool prints the break-even sale price so the weekly choice to keep holding has a criterion instead of reopening on a hunch.