Demand Based Price Reporting

What does Mother Goose have to do with the largest merger of 2020? A whole lot more than just a golden egg. Around 1760, John Newbery published the first edition of Mother Goose in England. Newberry would come to be known as the Father of Children's Literature, for having published about 200 children's books in his lifetime. 

Among Newbery’s lesser known achievements is the establishment of The Public Ledger, one of the world's longest continuously running magazines. Today The Public Ledger is a market intelligence solution providing agricultural commodity news, analyses and prices. When established in 1760, however, it also included a wide variety of political, commercial and society news and commentary.

Through a series of consolidations over the last 259 years, The Public Ledger became a part of Agribusiness. Then in 2019, Informa Agribusiness Intelligence was transferred in full to IHS Markit. And last week, in a landmark deal that combined two of the largest providers of data to Wall Street, S&P Global bought IHS Markit for around $44 Billion. Like I said, much more than a golden egg.

While The Public Ledger of the 21st century looks far different from its origins, the method of data collection has remained in some ways unchanged. The process is still manual even as email has replaced the horse-drawn mail coach for communication. In order to reflect the largest possible market share, the modern market intelligence industry seeks out information from the most consolidated side of the industry: suppliers and large traders. The prices being reported are thus only from the supply side of the market.

Glowlit turned the traditional model on its head by automating market intelligence data collection. Our system allows anyone, including small local buyers, to benchmark their prices for free. Because Glowlit collects deals from the entire supply chain, we can more accurately reflect the market price as influenced by both supply and demand.

In its early days, The Public Ledger adopted the mantra: "Open to All Parties, Influenced by None." Based on these words, we believe John Newbery would have liked what we do here at Glowlit.