Alto Ingredients Inc (ALTO)

[Rule_62]

I suspect that will start to change significantly in the coming weeks. The image below captures the recent difference between the CBOT near futures price and the California terminal price for ethanol (note that it does not capture the actual cash price for any ethanol producers). BTW today isn't included because it looks like PFL will not publish their daily report today.

As you can see, there was an extended period of time where shipping ethanol to the West Coast was very lucrative. That has now changed. Assuming ethanol takes a week or more to be transported by rail, I suspect that sales to the West Coast markets have ceased being lucrative. Ethanol inventory gains that showed up last week were likely loaded and shipped beginning the week prior.



There are definitely advantages to keeping an ongoing price log with a market as volatile as ethanol. That's just a peek at what I've been logging. The image below shows the column headers I've set up for Q1 2015. All in all it takes me about 10 minutes a day to collect and enter the data. It's taken me a few quarters to figure out what has value and what doesn't, but I think I've pretty much got it nailed now (although I might add the daily Brazil price as well).