StoneX Financial Inc. launches StoneHedge, a new web-based merchandising system that enables commercial grain companies to originate grain more efficiently by streamlining the process of creating and managing offers/contracts and their corresponding hedge orders.
StoneHedge solves grain companies’ most critical needs, allowing them to incorporate cash bids, stream quotes, initiate contract/offers/orders, and manage their long/short position and hedges through one centralized and easy-to-use platform.
The StoneHedge system has already been rolled out to StoneX customers with over 50 million bushels handled over the last 12 months and will be available to the entire industry soon.
Dave Smoldt, president of the StoneX Commodities Division, says the team is beyond thrilled to roll out StoneHedge as a seamless technology system that dramatically increases efficiency and creates an opportunity to reduce risk for the industry.
"StoneX prides itself on leveraging our connections and our boots-on-the-ground experience to better understand the clients we serve," says Smoldt.
"StoneHedge was born out of our unique mix of our industry knowledge and technical expertise that gives us a deeper and more meaningful understanding of our customers’ goals and needs.”
StoneHedge was designed to transform grain companies’ offer management process to drive efficiency, enabling them to serve their customers better by increasing productivity for originators and hedge managers while minimizing the potential for errors and slippage.
“We recently integrated StoneHedge into our operation and are already convinced we made the right decision for our business," says Mike Silver, manager of Grain Origination & Risk Services of Kokomo Grain, Kokomo, IN.
"Grain companies often deal with multiple customers across multiple locations, and with competition growing and margins shrinking, efficiency and customer service become more important than ever. StoneHedge has helped improve both through its all-in-one intuitive platform that is clearly designed to be easy to use for our industry.”
Robert Crow, Grain Division Manager of Frontier Ag Inc., Goodland, KS, says StoneHedge has made origination more efficient and simplified merchandising.
"Before, our originators would call their offers and contracts into the office or central hedge desk and then get their fills reported back to them," says Crow.
"Merchandisers had to manage every hedge order to a T and the central hedge desk had to manage what month to place the hedges in. StoneHedge is complex enough to do the automated processes I need and yet simple enough to use that my originators can buy bushels on their laptops while riding in a combine with the farmer.
"He has his fill instantly and it is hedged in the correct futures month that I want, even if the bid is off a different month," Crow continues. " We look forward to more automation and streamlining of our processes to better serve our customers and handle more bushels per employee and StoneHedge is working to get us there.”
