My Opa, a Texas-German farmer like his father and his father’s father before him, were keenly aware of that time-honored proverb “Make hay while the sun shines.” While the meaning was perhaps distinctly more literal for them in terms of actually getting the hay in before bad weather set in, I’ve no doubt they probably said that phrase on many other occasions when it meant that they needed to take advantage of the chance to do something profitable while conditions were good. Market predictions, like weather predictions, are fraught with uncertainties, unknowns and a host of other hidden bugaboos waiting to throw a monkey wrench into the best laid forecasts. Coal markets, like most all other commodities, are subject to environmental, economic and geopolitical tides that ebb and flow with such dramatic change that it’s anyone’s guess on their immediate future direction. But there is no argument that, while being declared dead less than a year ago, coal markets now appear to have been only “mostly dead” (apologies to Billy Crystal and all Princess Bride fans). Despite a string of seemingly unrelenting bad news such as global initiatives to curb emissions, continued plans to retire coal-fired plants, the ever-growing availability
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