(upbeat instrumental music) (upbeat instrumental music continues) - Welcome to "A Shot of AG."

I'm your host, Rob Sharkey.

If you're going to be a great voice in agriculture, for agriculture, you have to grow up in farming, right?

Well, today's guest is definitely gonna disagree.

Today we're gonna be talking with Karen Braun from Naperville.

How you doing?

- I'm doing great, Rob.

- Yeah, Naperville up by Chicago.

- Yep.

- Yeah.

- Yep, that is about, I don't know, 30 miles west of Chicago.

But in traffic it could be, I don't know, hour and a half, two hours sometimes.

- It's nutty up there.

- I just try to stay in Naperville as much as I can.

- Is it ever not congested?

- No, maybe at like two in the morning on a Tuesday, maybe.

- Every once in a while you can scroll right through.

- Right, exactly.

- You are the Chief Market Analyst for Zaner Ag Hedge.

- Yes.

- I don't know what that means.

- So, basically I was the agriculture columnist for Reuters News for 10 years.

And so, I was putting out market commentary, data-driven analysis, a lot of charts.

People knew me on Twitter, now X, just for my visuals and my coverage of USDA reports and just other really important market data for agriculture.

So, just this year I moved over to Zaner Ag Hedge to be their Chief Market Analyst to basically launch my own newsletter.

So, what I'm doing now is offering all of the insights that I was doing at Reuters in my columns, but kind of doing it in a more elevated and tailored way.

It's just kind of a way to push myself along even further and give my audience more of what they're looking for.

And so, that's kind of what I do at Zaner Ag Hedge now.

- That's where I first ran across you was the old Twitter days, right?

- Yeah.

- And you were putting out content that was, it was, to me, very unique.

And you're like, "Okay, who is this?

Who's this chick," right?

"What is she putting stuff out there?"

And then you kind of find out that you, you aren't a farm girl.

- No, no.

- You didn't grow up in ag at all.

- No, not at all.

- Okay.

- Right.

- Well, let's take a trip back.

Let's back this bus up a little bit.

You actually didn't even really go to school to learn about what you're doing now, right?

- No.

- What did you wanna do?

- Well, when you're 18 years old and applying to college, really 17 years old and applying to college, who can know what they wanna do?

- [Rob] I did.

- I mean, you might have.

- Yeah.

- And there were people that I knew that did have a path.

But I mean, it's hard for most, I think, 17 year olds to be like, "I wanna do this as my life," and so.

- [Rob] Are you saying I'm odd?

- No, I'm not saying you're odd.

I'm saying maybe you're lucky because it is very confusing to go out in the world and you know, how am I going to make a career for myself, make a path for myself, like what's it gonna look like for me and how do I get there?

And things are very competitive, even back when I was going to school.

- Yeah.

- I mean, very competitive.

So, you know- - Where'd you go to school?

- I went to Cornell in New York.

(Rob laughing) And there (laughs).

(bell dings) Okay, okay.

- Ivy League, huh?

- Maybe a little bit, yeah.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

- So, are you smart, or did you bribe your way in?

- So, I guess I'm smart enough to be there.

But you know what, Cornell was four years of just kind of, I don't know, making it, surviving.

Every time you go to a test you just, it's like you didn't even study for the test.

It just had a way of humbling you, cutting you down, and just reminding you the world's hard and things are hard.

And it was just competitive.

Got through though, and- - Probably not for the really smart kids though.

Were you the dumb kid in a smart college?

- So, no, I wouldn't say that, but just like test taking, you have to be really good at test taking and you have to be really good at that book stuff.

I would say I'm very smart in maybe a different way than maybe your traditional Ivy League student, - Well, you have to be smart- - in an engineering discipline would be looked at.

- I would never get into Cornell because I'm not that smart.

- If I applied today, they would laugh at me, yeah.

- But here you are, this big success.

- That's right.

- Yeah.

- So, I think that while I was at Cornell, I was just able to kind of develop the foundation for what I do now.

And that's really kind of that data-driven objective analysis that I think is different in like what you saw on Twitter years ago when you first saw me.

And the work that I'm putting out, it is very objective.

And I think people like that because there's a lot of people out there that are talking their positions that get emotional and that, you know, and because they do have a stake.

Like they, especially farmers, like this is their livelihood.

The prices of grain are very important, and so you understand how it gets emotional.

But I'm here to kind of, look, I'm not trading, I'm not farming, I'm not anything.

I am just trying to show you what the data is saying, and just maybe give you some of that context that maybe some of the headlines that we're seeing just don't ever bring.

- [Rob] Your void of emotion.

- I try to be in my data, yes.

I mean, whenever I'm, - Yeah.

- Whenever I'm presenting- - It's better off that way.

Yeah, just in life too.

- It is.

It is 'cause you know, - Yeah.

- even when you do get tied up in one narrative, you can do a ton of research to just show hey, the opposite of that could actually also happen.

So, you do, you always see different scenarios.

And so, that's what I do.

I just look at all the scenarios because you know, when you talk about a market, you've got really smart people on both sides of the market.

You've got longs and shorts, why?

I mean, there's reasons for both.

So, you just have to really look at everything and just not get too wrapped up in kind of the narrative and the emotions of it all.

- Yeah, I've interviewed you a lot.

Now, in a situation like this where the interview is not coming out for a long time you can't really say what's gonna happen.

- Right.

- Like where's the corn market gonna be in a month from today?

It depends on what tweet comes out.

- Oh boy.

(Rob laughing) I mean, you know what, it's really tough to know.

I mean, as we're filming now, obviously we've had a month-long void of USDA data so we're not really sure kind of how much we've been selling on the export market, really even where our crops are at.

And so, we're relying on sort of those cash levels regionally, we're relying on these export inspections.

We're relying on really rumors, and that's risky of course.

So, we don't know when we're gonna open up and see more information.

- Yeah.

- But it's tough.

- I'm sure when this comes out everything's gonna be just, - Let's hope so.

- fine.

All right, let's simplify stuff.

You wanted to be a weather girl (laughs).

- So, that is, actually, I would say that's not accurate.

- I know it's not.

It was a joke, yeah.

(Karen laughing) - You know, I guess I always loved weather because, I grew up in the Midwest.

And my parents had a tornado siren in the backyard, and every time it would go off as a kid I would just be really afraid of that because it sounded really scary.

It was those old like grindy ones that just sounded so scary.

But there was something that fascinated me about that, that why should I not study the things that scare me?

And weather, very interesting in the Midwest.

- Okay, Bruce Wayne.

(Karen and Rob laughing) - But I actually ended up doing that at grad school.

My thesis was on tornadoes, - Really?

- in grad school, yes.

And I chased tornadoes in grad school.

- Did you ever catch one?

- Yes, actually.

- Okay, here you are afraid of 'em, and now you're going out in a Volkswagen Beetle and trying to run one down.

- It was like a Dodge Caravan, I wanna say, in roughly 2009.

- You probably had a spoiler on the back to keep it low (laughs).

- You know what, it got beat up a little bit.

But no, it was actually very safe 'cause it was a government-funded project.

A lot of just the best researchers in the world out there.

- Yeah.

- And we're just trying to collect data, and we finally did one really good one.

And yeah, it was just kind of game changing for just meteorology in general.

- Was it like "Twister?"

- Actually, yes.

So, the project that I was on was the second installment.

The first installment in the early '90s that my graduate advisor was part of is what the movie "Twister" was based on.

- Oh.

- So, actually very much so, yes.

I was not the person dropping the pods in front of the tornado.

- Yeah.

- Some of my friends were.

But, so I was not right in the line of fire, but I was on the outskirts trying to capture photography of what the developing storm looked like at different intervals so that you can overlay data later on and we can see like what are the visual cues that forecasters should look for, - [Rob] Yeah.

- storm spotters should look for.

- But you didn't show up to serve your ex-husband divorce papers and find out that he was actually dating his therapist, and they were having troubles.

And then you rekindled the love in a red Dodge Ram.

- It would've been a more interesting story to sit here and tell you yes.

- Yeah.

- But unfortunately, yeah, no.

- I like that Helen Hunt though.

- Yeah, yeah.

- She seems likable.

Yeah.

- Yeah.

No, I mean, look, that movie, and it came out when I was a kid, loved that movie.

It didn't inspire me necessarily to do weather 'cause I was still too young to really think about a career path.

But I mean, it was just fascinating.

- Yeah.

- It just kind of- - Oh, it was cool.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

- A classic.

- How did you get started working for Reuters?

- So, I got started at Reuters, first of all, it was on their financial side.

So, Thomson Reuters had a financial and risk business that, you know, they deliver data to energy clients, to ag clients.

And so, my internship out of graduate school was in Houston delivering weather data to energy clients for Thomson Reuters.

And so, at that time they had just acquired a group called Lanworth, and Lanworth did agriculture forecasting.

And just through months of back and forth, this and that, the next year I find myself an ag analyst at Thomson Reuters Lanworth, having really never known anything about agriculture - But you know numbers.

- before.

I know numbers and I know weather.

- Okay.

- So, that is why they brought me in because they saw that I could probably learn about agriculture.

Now, it was an interesting time.

It was early 2012.

And so, 2012 was a massive drought.

- Drought year, yeah.

- And so, coming into that, I mean, I actually didn't really understand how important that was.

I didn't realize the scope of it.

I didn't realize the impact that it had at the time, but it was a really interesting time to start because you hit the ground running.

I mean, this is, everyone is asking you what's gonna happen?

Everyone's following the market, prices are going crazy.

So, yeah, I hit the ground running right away.

- Well, how did you do, I don't understand you.

Because all right, you don't have an ag background.

You maybe don't understand the farm lifestyle.

- Yeah.

- But in just a short amount of time, you went on social media and you posted and you became this face, this voice of agriculture.

And I'm still, I don't know how it happened.

- Yeah, you know, sometimes I actually don't really know exactly how it happened.

But I think it just all goes back to, well, first of all, it took years to learn really the ag market the way I understand it now.

I mean, it really took years to understand what people are doing, you know, supply, demand, and importers, exporters, just all of the aspects of the market.

But at the end of the day, I'm a very visual person.

I'm a very data-oriented person.

So, I was just sharing on social media the way that I need to digest it for myself, like the tables and charts that I need to see to understand what's going on.

And so, I think over time people were just like, "I want that, I wanna see it like that.

This is helpful to me."

And so, I found myself in that role, just I never thought I could do it.

I never thought I could energize - No, it doesn't fit the mold.

- people on social media, or.

- You gotta be negative.

I wear a Speedo half the time to get attention, but here you are just putting up charts.

- Sometimes it does blow my mind to think about.

But it is, but then it does create some pressure because I don't wanna put out wrong information.

We're humans, and we make errors.

And so, now I'm just very, very, very conscious of- - Don't worry, social media won't remind you of your mistakes.

- Oh, I know, right?

(Rob laughing) Yeah.

No, a very safe place, a very safe place.

(Rob and Karen laughing) - Well, let's jump ahead to Zaner.

Tell me what you're doing there.

- So, like I said, I've got my own newsletter going now.

It's live.

And just multiple times a week I'm putting out just commentary on what's going on in the markets.

I mean, dealing with all the trade issues, especially this year, dealing with just kind of the record crop projections we've had, just all the things going on in the markets this year.

I'm just every day trying to bring people all right, what's the perspective we need to know, what's the context here?

What are some clean charts I can show?

Just like, here's a quick summary of the situation.

How does this compare with another time?

I mean, just all of those types of views that I would bring people on Twitter for years.

I'm just kind of doing that now.

And it's really fun because I'm not, I guess, tied to the wire, I guess, the wire format that I was at Reuters.

I mean, 'cause you had to have a certain wire-friendly style.

And it's not that I'm writing super casually now, but it does allow me to kind of do it in a more tailored way, like a more, I don't know.

I guess more of my style, like develop my own style of writing and of delivering this information.

And so, I love it and it's just, yeah.

It's allowed me to really tap into what I do well.

- Well, you've gotta be doing something right.

- Yeah, I think so.

- 'Cause, yeah.

What have we got here?

- So, these are, we have not talked about gymnastics yet.

- We have, I'm sorry (laughs).

(Karen laughing) - So, I believe that gymnastics- - [Rob] Should I be touching this?

- [Karen] You can touch it, yeah.

- Okay.

- [Karen] Your hands might get a little bit chalky.

- [Rob] Well, I didn't know.

- So, what I'm showing here are my gymnastics grips.

Now, these actually I just got in 2023, so these are relatively new.

- Okay.

- I was doing gymnastics in 2023.

I've had to take a hiatus to hopefully fix my aging body that did a sport for a really long time.

- It happens, yeah.

- Yeah.

It does, so.

- Happens to the best of us.

Yeah.

- But so, if you've never seen these up close, basically it's just you put on a wristband.

And these are leather, leather grips, and you see gymnasts wearing these at the Olympics, at gymnastics competitions you watch.

- Yeah.

- You just kind of put it on like this, and there's already chalk flying everywhere.

Kinda strap it up, and it's got a little dowel in there, like a little dowel rod.

- Yeah.

- Yep, so it goes right over the bar like that.

And it helps you hang onto the bar without having to like rip up your hand.

So, it allows you- - So, you did that?

You were like spinning around a bar and everything?

- That's right, wearing these, yeah.

- Okay.

- Wearing these.

- Did you do all of 'em, like the pummel, or I don't know.

(Karen laughing) I don't know what they all do.

- So, vault, bars, beam, and floor for the women.

- Okay, yeah.

- And my best event and favorite event is the balance beam.

- [Rob] Oh, yeah.

- Which most people will not tell you that because it's a little bit scary.

- Yeah, you could fall down.

(Karen laughing) - You could definitely fall down.

It is just under four inches wide, so 10 centimeters.

That's just a little under four inches.

And it's- - I couldn't walk that.

If it was two inches off the ground I would fall.

- So, when I returned to gymnastics as an adult in 2022, just getting up on the high beam, I was shaking.

I was like, "Oh wow, I really underappreciated just how much nerves a gymnast really has."

- Yeah.

(Rob and Karen laughing) You would, when you went on the crop tours, you would do, - Yes.

- you were famous for doing handstands.

- Still am.

And I'm still gonna bring that to my audience as long as my body allows me to do handstands.

- Do one now.

- I don't think that would work out (Rob laughing) too well on this stage.

I don't know.

You don't want me - On the desk.

- going off here in a stretcher.

I don't know, I'm not Simone Biles, okay?

I mean, very close, but.

(Rob laughing) But yeah, I mean, I think, so the reason I bring these gymnastics grips today is because I started gymnastics at age three.

I did it through college and then, like I said, I was doing gymnastics as an adult just a couple years ago.

And I just think being a gymnast kind of shaped who I am as a person.

- [Rob] Yeah.

- Because it's a very mental sport.

It's a very detail-oriented sport, and it requires you to be aware of your surroundings at all times.

And I feel like that's what I'm doing in the markets.

Like I'm trying to be aware of the surroundings at all time.

I'm trying to be aware of the situation.

I'm trying to be very objective, and just bring people a path to success.

And like that's what gymnastics is as well.

I mean, you can't cheat your way through it.

You either land that flip on the beam, or you don't and you fall off.

But there's no in-between.

- You say gymnastics was, it's a mental sport.

- Oh yeah.

- When you were working for Reuters towards the end there, - Yeah.

- they actually asked you to cover the Olympics.

- That's right.

- And you talked to Simone?

- I did - Simone Boyles, how do you say it?

- Simone Biles.

- Yeah, Simone Biles.

(Karen laughing) - Come on now, Rob.

- But this was, this was after she had the issue with, what was it called?

- The twisties.

- The twisties.

- Yes.

- And, I mean, was she, here you come up with a microphone.

Was she worried that you were gonna dogpile on that?

- No, because I think she made it very clear while in Paris, and even leading up, that she has gotten over that.

That she's there to do her thing, and obviously she won a lot of medals.

And that we didn't really need to continue going on about it.

Like it's just not, we've talked about it.

We've kind of exhausted that, and I think that she made it very clear.

So, as a respectful member of the press, I'm not going to ask her questions that she's asked me to not ask, so.

- Was that a cool moment for you?

- It was so cool, just being able to interview what I think is one of the best sports stars that we've ever seen, male or female, any sport.

I mean, just the way that she dominates that sport.

And just, like you said, just the mental aspect of it.

Showing that like hey, sometimes when you're at the top, even those people, they're human.

And things do impact them.

And I think that we have to remember that, that she's not superhuman.

She is a human.

And so, things do happen.

- The twisties are, I mean, they're real?

What is that?

- They are real.

So, the twisties have actually happened to me.

The twisties are when you are doing flips or doing, whatever you're doing, but it happens a lot on twisting and flipping moves because you're not only flipping in the air, but you're twisting.

- [Rob] Yeah, I would have no idea.

- You just kind of lose air, you lose air awareness all of a sudden.

And it's just where you don't really understand where your body is, which when you're doing the stuff that she's doing that's very dangerous.

She's flying like, - Yeah, she's doing all that.

- 15 feet in the air and doesn't know where she's at.

That's just not, that's a recipe for disaster.

And she knew it, and she pulled outta the competition.

And that's, at the time, what she should've done.

I mean, when you have a mental block like that, just taking a little break is usually what fixes it.

But when you're at the Olympics, you don't have time for a little break, you know?

- Yeah, she got hammered for that.

- She did, and that was just really not fair.

But she came back in Paris and just proved who she is and that she can stay around, and that she's really just the greatest maybe the sport's ever seen probably.

- Okay.

What about Mary Lou Retton?

I like her though.

- I like her too, yeah.

- She's America's little sweetheart.

- She was.

- I mean, it's because up until then it was all these Russians that never smiled that were so good.

- That's right.

- Yeah.

- Mary Lou was definitely a groundbreaker in that sense.

- Yeah, yeah.

What's this?

- So, this is my corn hair clip, and this is relatively new.

- Corn hair clip?

- So, I got this this year in Wilmington, North Carolina.

- [Rob] Oh.

- I was just walking around.

I went to my cousin's wedding in Wilmington, and we were killing time in the shops.

And I saw this little hair clip, and it's a corn clip.

And I thought, "Well, for nine bucks I'm obviously gonna buy that."

(Rob laughing) And I can't tell you how many people have commented on this corn clip.

People in ag and not in ag, - Really?

- just love this corn hair clip.

- It's the little things in life, isn't it?

- Right?

- Yeah.

- So, if joy can be brought from this $9 corn clip, absolutely.

- As you're talking I'm wondering where you sit in life now.

You had no background in ag.

- Right.

- Because I did, and I want to be a person in ag that is looked at as bringing something to agriculture.

- Yeah.

- Here you are, you've become this big name in ag.

I mean, are you happy with that?

- I think so, yeah.

I mean, because it, like I said before, what I'm doing in bringing people the context behind what's going on in the news now, being able to break down like data and show people really the truth about what markets are doing, what volumes are trading, or this and that.

I mean, that is allowing me to use my strengths.

I feel like not only my strength of being able to crunch numbers, but just like visually too.

Being able to put together something really clean that people can just in a few seconds digest kind of the summary that I'm trying to get at.

And I think that this industry is really great for that, and that's my strength is communicating with people complex ideas, showing them, reminding them of historical context, whatever context is needed.

And just boiling down just tons of data into just a simple little view.

And I think that not everyone does that, or not everyone can do that.

It's hard.

- [Rob] No, not everybody can do that.

- Yeah, so.

- Who, as far as selling commodities, corn, soybeans, hogs, whatever, who's better marketers, men or women?

- You know what?

I don't actually know.

- Don't think about it.

Don't think about it.

- Okay, fine, fine.

Women, Rob.

I gotta be team women.

Sorry.

- Sexist.

Sexist right there.

(Karen laughing) You're right.

You're 100% right.

- I might be.

- I should let my wife absolutely sell all of my grain because you talked about the emotional part.

- Yeah.

- I can't help it.

I try not to get emotional.

- Yeah.

Yeah.

- Oh, stuff went up this week.

And I'm like, "It might go up more, I don't know."

- I know.

- And they did today.

So, see, your emotions (Karen laughing) are always right (laughs).

- They can be, but then where I come in is I remind people, okay, but do you remember when last year you were saying, - I hate it.

I hate when you guys do this.

- you were saying, "Oh, I would do anything for $11 beans."

And then they come along and you're like, - Stop it.

- "Oh, but $12, $13."

- Just stop talking.

(Rob and Karen laughing) - Someone's gotta remind you.

- Every year, every year.

Well, if people want to learn more about you, maybe get your newsletter, where do they go?

- So, a couple ways.

You can go to my Twitter, my X profile.

The link is right there in my bio.

Or you can go to zaner.com/karenbraun, and you can sign up right there.

It just takes a few seconds.

- Yeah, and you're up there in Chicago in the heartbeat of the markets and all that stuff.

- That's right, yeah.

Sometimes at my house, so, which is very comfortable.

- Yeah.

My wife and I got to know you a little bit at one time underneath the Board of Trade at Ceres, Ceres?

- Yeah, Ceres, yep.

It's still going, yeah, yeah.

- That is a bar that will pour you a stiff, - Yes.

- stiff drink.

- Very, very stiff.

In fact, I mean, it's just pure alcohol.

(Rob and Karen laughing) - You ask for a martini, - No mixers.

- it's pure vodka.

- That's right.

(Rob and Karen laughing) You gotta be careful at Ceres.

- I love interviewing you.

On the ag side I love interviewing you because you give insight like none other out there, seriously.

And that is meant to be a sincere compliment.

I also like interviewing you in situations like this where the audience is maybe ag, but not so much ag.

- Yeah.

- Because your personality and how you have grown from, you know, over the time, but yet been able to still use your strengths in helping us in agriculture.

You're a true testament to farming and ag.

So, I want to thank you for all of that.

- Thank you very much.

I really appreciate that.

- Karen Braun, thank you.

Everybody else, we'll catch you next time.

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