BASIC & RECENT MARKET INFO

Highlights 247AG, after predicting Brazil’s weather the next 10 days, reports: "Can it get worse? Most definitely. Just getting started. Safrinha crop will be off by at least 20%, if not 30% or more." Corn futures in Brazil continue to rise, buoyed by the weather forecast for April. The Panama Canal Authority (ACP) will increase the daily limit of vessels through the canal from 24 to 27 on March 18th. Three Panamax ships would hold 6.5 mil. bushels of corn.

Tidbits Angie Setzer has been in the cash grain industry for over 18 years. She has dedicated her career to learning the ins and outs of the cash grain business from both the commercial and the farmer side, working to marry the two, teaching farmers to manage grain as an elevator would. She left the elevator business to launch Consus in 2021. Angie also writes for Barchart on Sundays. The first part of her article yesterday covers the bean market news for the past six months

First notice day for deliveries on March CBOT contracts is this Thursday, which is usually an up day for markets after (usually) a down day the previous day as all the holders of long positions in the March futures are liquidating to avoid being assigned bushels. Translation: Your futures broker and your merchandiser want you to price or roll all March long positions before the close tomorrow. Highlights More scuttlebutt Monday about the possibility of more corn exports to Ch

Highlights Argentina devalued its currency while everyone was asleep Wednesday morning, which is when a devaluation should be done. The Argentina Peso was devalued by 54%; now 801 pesos per US$. The market was afraid the devaluation would cause a lot of Argentine agriculture products to hit the international market. That could not happen. While Argentina does have a little wheat to sell, it has been importing corn and beans from Brazil for many months. Plus, export permits we

Highlights Benson-Quinn analysts reported yesterday morning: "North and Central Brazil caught 60% of the region. More scattered activity expected today. Then dry until next weekend. Feels like this region is turning the corner. Expect more rains in S Brazil (where it has been very wet the past two months), but it also sounds like some planting progress is being made." And this yesterday afternoon: "USA weekly corn export inspections (yesterday) were best since June at 1.16

Highlights Yesterday’s mid-day weather forecast went drier for Central Brazil for next week. This major crop area will receive rains through this Friday, but amounts will not be enough to end the drought as November rains are running about half of normal this week. The extended outlook keeps high pressure over the north while Southern Brazil remains too wet, delaying planting and destroying some of crops that did get planted. Several wheat contracts made new lows yesterday

Tidbits Rain has fallen in many of the dry areas or Brazil’s crop area, but not as much as predicted a few days ago. Many areas expected heavy rains, but received sprinkles or none. No one expects the weather to return to a normal rainy season. Rondonópolis, Mato Grosso received half a mm of rain yesterday. Daytime high temperature was 106°F (41°C). Brazil’s corn plus freight to Asia is more expensive than US corn plus freight shipped from the PNW. For soybeans, Brazil is s

Tidbits Louis Dreyfus Company (LDC) announced Friday the construction of a soybean processing plant in Upper Sandusky, Ohio with integrated crushing, vegetable oil refining and lecithin production and packaging capabilities.   Construction will begin in early 2024; the new facility will employ over 100 people with an annual soy crushing capacity of 55 million bushels (1,500,000 mts). Annual production will be 320,000 mts of soybean oil and 7,500 mts of lecithin.   Dreyfus rec

Highlights We consider the biggest short-term bearish threat is another banking “crisis” to scare the markets. We put the risk of that happening at 50/50, but if that does happen, the sell-off will be short-lived and recovery will be more quickly than the sell off we suffered through three weeks ago. Maybe we can take some comfort from the news Federal Reserve officials are expressing confidence they have nipped a potential financial crisis in the bud. Now they face a diffi

Highlights Late yesterday, the Manhattan District Attorney asked for a meeting with law enforcement officials ahead of a possible indictment of Donald Trump. The DA said he is planning to have Donald Trump handcuffed and arrested next week over hush money Trump’s attorney paid to Stormy Daniels to keep her quiet in 2016. What this event would do to commodity prices is probably bearish short term and then bullish after a week or so. Hopefully, the nation does not have to go th

Highlights This is important for you younger guys to remember this item the rest of your life: Two fields with everything identical (same crop, variety, stage of maturity, soil type, elevation, agle to the sun, low temperature for the same amount of time, etc.), a field with wet soil will have much less frost damage than a field with dry soil. It is still too early to know how serious the frost damage was over the weekend, but here is sampling of temperatures Saturday morni

Highlights The soybean fields of Argentina and Rio Grande do Sul (RGDS), Brazil’s southern state, had temperatures 100 to 104°F (38 to 40°C) over the weekend with the next 7 days predicted to be above normal temperatures and below normal, but with some rainfall, the next few days. Up until late January, the market bought the baloney that any drought in Argentina and RGDS resulting in fewer beans would be more than offset by the above average rainfall in Northern Brazil. We

Highlights Nothing in yesterday's numbers changed our outlook for prices in 2023. On yesterday’s reports, USDA did: Reduced Argentina’s corn crop by 5 million mts to 47 million and left Brazil’s corn crop unchanged at 125 million mt, the net change was pretty much expected. Reduced Argentina’s soybean crop by 4.5 million mt to 41 million and left Brazil’s corn production unchanged at 153 million mt. Raised Australia’s old wheat crop 1.4 million mt, to a record 38 million,

About 2023 new crop Justin asked: "What’s your 2023 new crop recommendations? Will u be putting those out soon? Or do u wait until old crop recs have been filled? I’m fairly new to your program so just asking. Thanks." We will begin tracking new crop beans and corn outlook after the January 12th S&D with the final 2022 production estimates. We do not want anyone pricing new crops until they know their cost of inputs. Inflation of farm supplies and machinery in the 1970’s res

Highlights The commodity market news since Friday's strong finish and now includes a major escalation of the war in Eastern Europe (bullish), China is replacing Turkey as Putin's #1 buddy (bullish because Turkey keeps Ukraine's grain corridor open), less rain than expected in Argentina (bullish), continued poor US corn and wheat exports, (yes, bearish but very old news), the US money supply declined from the previous month for the first time in 33 years (hey, that puts a real

Tidbits Deliveries assigned for today by the CBOT are 654 soy oil to 28 December, 93 soybeans to 25 October, and zero bean meal to 9 December. To learn about how and why deliveries affect commodity prices, go to: www.wrightonthemarket.com/post/delivery-process-at-the-cbot Most of the reasons for lower CBOT prices yesterday were from outside the ag business. For the first time since February 1989, the number of US dollars in circulation decreased from the previous month. Th

We apologize for yesterday's email stating the price changes of the outside markets. Certainly some of you had a near heart attack when we reported the markets were trading when you thought they were not. You were correct, they were not trading. Crude oil started trading last evening and the ag commodities will open at 8:30 AM Central Time this morning. A lack of attention to detail is a vice, especially in our business as a service to you. Again, we apologize. Be at war with

Highlights As predicted, a cold front from the Pacific collided with a warm air mass east of the Andes Mountains in Argentina this weekend. It generated storms and rain over a large part of the central crop area of Argentina yesterday. The following locations are in northern Argentina. The amount of rain each received on New Year’s Day is stated in mm (25.4 mm = 1 inch): Berrotaran 52 mm Paso Cabral 52 mm Río de los Sauces 56 mm Lutti 53 mm La Cruz 47 mm Los Condores 50 mm Al

Highlights A metric ton (2,204 pounds) of MAP (fertilizer, monoammonium phosphate) in Brazil in May was $1,350. Friday it was $640. China’s November crude oil refinery production rose to the highest in 12 months, reaching 14.5 million barrels per day. The increased production resulted from the global shortage of diesel and cheap Russian crude oil that pushed up refining margins. China had two new refinery start-ups which contributed 520,000 barrels a day to the increased refi

Highlights Last week, both China and India were purchasing crude oil from Russia at a massive $33.28 discount to Brent. On Friday, they were paying less than $54 for Russian crude oil. Therefore, the EU’s $60 cap is meaningless. Sunday's OPEC + meeting ended as expected: No crude oil production quota changes at least until they meet again in mid-January. It is time to reassess the factors that will drive corn, wheat and bean prices into the first part of January and to a la