In this week’s podcast we look at the impact Sinclair Tractor’s record online auction had on the market. In the Technology Corner Jack Zemlicka talks with Owen Palm of 21st Century Equipment about a shift to precision specialization in dealerships. A number of manufacturers and dealers reported their latest earnings this month, including: AGCO, CNH Industrial, Kubota, Buhler Industries and Rocky Mountain Dealerships. And we discuss the possibility of a record setting corn yield this year.

I was curious to see what the price increase has been for combines over the past 3 model changes. I looked through the business system, locating customers who have rolled combines every year, trying to see how pricing has evolved over the last decade. What I found was not all that shocking, but at the same time I have to wonder how long trading the volume of equipment with high used pricing can be sustained. This is not to say a 2018 combine and 2008 combine are the same. The amount of technology and overall improvements in the past 10 years are tremendously vast. So, this goes without saying, R&D cost will be recaptured but with this comes a challenge of its own. When a manufacturer has a price increase, it does affect the used market but not the entire price increase. In the the last 5 years, the rate of price increase recapture has been less than the previous 5 years.