BASIC & RECENT MARKET INFO

Tidbits South Korea bought 201,000 mts of corn: 136,000 mts is expected from unspecified sources and 65,000 mts from South America. Japan bought 77,220 mts of milling wheat from a tender that we mentioned 2 days ago: 55,420 mts from the U.S. and 21,800 mts from Australia. China's Sinograin has bought nearly 500,000 mts of U.S. soybeans this week for shipment in March and April, paying more for U.S. supplies for state reserves rather than buying cheaper Brazilian beans, two U.

Soybeans Comment Today is the first day of the 45 day period that will make or break Brazil’s soybean crop.    Most years, soybean futures make a low for the year before 10 October (this year 14 August) and then prices firm into the end of the calendar year, trade sideways for two weeks and then down for two or three weeks. Why? If the majority of Brazil’s beans were planted at the normal time, by January 15th, the market knows the condition of the crop, soil moisture, and th

Tidbits Yesterday morning, the USDA reported the sale of 30,000 mts of old crop soybean oil and 35,000 mts of rice to South Korea.   Cargill began laying off employees across its operations on Tuesday in a drive to slash headcount by 5%. Cargill is facing a downturn in returns in cattle, grains and oilseeds businesses. In Minnesota, home to its headquarters, Cargill plans to terminate 475 employees. Cargill has more than 160,000 employees worldwide, and a spokesperson said al

Highlights This news report was what kicked soybeans in the head late yesterday morning: a bill to revoke China's (most favored) trade status has been introduced in the US Congress. The author is Republican John Moolenaar (Michigan), chairman of the lower house's China Committee. The document proposes  increasing tariffs: 35% strategic goods 100% non-strategic goods   Republicans control the lower house. The new document will become the basis for Trump's tariff policy. In res

Highlights The US Congress did pass a temporary funding bill yesterday to keep the US government operating until December 20. It is assumed President Biden will sign it since all Democrats in the Congress voted for it.   Grain workers at Canada’s biggest grain loading port did go on strike Tuesday. Vancouver port handled about 52% of grain produced in Canada last year.   About 45,000 dockworkers at every major eastern and Gulf coast port are scheduled to strike midnight 30 Se

Highlights Brazil’s Supreme Court on Sunday authorized the government to exempt spending on wildfires and droughts in the Amazon and Pantanal regions from this year’s fiscal target as the country grapples with the economic impacts of its worst drought on record.   The decision clears the way for the government to take action if it submits an executive order to Congress requesting extraordinary measures to address the situation.   According to the National Center for Monitorin

Highlights It is unusual that no rain has fallen nor predicted by the middle of September for Rondonópolis, an area in Brazil's top grain producing state of Mato Grosso in the heart of its prime soybean and corn area. Rain has fallen the past few days in the far north and west areas of Mato Grosso.     We report daily the number of days rain is expected in the ten day forecast for Rondonópolis, which normally receives sporadic showers 10 to 14 days before the rainy season beg

Highlights The supply of US refinery products in the US Gulf Coast, especially the 3 million barrel per day Louisiana refining capacity, has been largely unaffected by Hurricane Francine, with Shell’s Norco and Citgo’s Lake Charles refinery reporting no damage and returning to normal operations.   A large amount of Libyan production remains shut-down after UN-brokered talks have collapsed; production is now 1.5 million barrels per day.   The following chart is the inventory o

Highlights All the weakness in crude oil prices is based upon the gloom and doom predictions for the worlds’ economy, most especially China’s economy, whose industrial PMI for September was 50.4, up 0.6 from July. As far as the US economy goes, who thinks lower interest rates coming in less than two weeks will slow down economic growth?   Goldman Sachs cut its expected crude oil price range by $5 a barrel for 2025. They expect crude to average $80 per barrel next year with a

Highlights ProFarmer Tour results and comments by Reuters’ Karen Braun: Minnesota corn yield at 164.9 bu/acre, the tour's lowest since 2012 and down 9% from 2023. USDA has MN corn yield unchanged year-on-year. Pod counts for soybeans were near the 3-year average. “10 stops along my route in southwest Minnesota. Not a single corn field looked good from the road, and that largely held true inside. Corn was yellow and uneven everywhere.”   Iowa corn yield at 192.79 bu/acre, a to

Highlights Pro Farmer Nebraska corn yield is up from last year but below 2021's 182.35 record yield. Pod counts for soybeans are a 3 year high though below the 1200+ pods seen in 2018-2021. PFT member Ted Seifried said after 7th stop in Butter Co, Nebraska: “I have been seeing ear worms on almost every stop of the tour but they seem to be getting worse. The yield check on this field was 230.9’ but I also calculated an average of 70 ear worms in a 30’ row.”   Pro Farmer Indian

Highlights All three wheat classes were lower yesterday, but the price free-fall was stopped by Egypt and Algeria submitted tenders to buy wheat. However, many wheat market analysts expect wheat to continue in a down trend as Northern Hemisphere harvest progress is more rapid and larger than normal. Despite the USDA increasing the size of the world wheat production by 5.5 million mts last Friday, the world will still produce less wheat than it uses this marketing year for the

Highlights In this business, when something unusual happens, such as yesterday’s assassination attempt on Donald Trump, one must consider if that unusual event will affect grain prices.   There are those that think the assassination attempt guarantees Trump will win the election. We are not so sure about that. After all, except for seven states, we already know which states’ electoral votes will go to Democrats and which ones will go to Trump. All the Democrats have to do to

The CFTC did not issue its COT report Friday afternoon due to the holiday last week. The COT will be released Monday afternoon. We will issue our Weekly Basis Tuesday.  Tidbits Correction: Yesterday’s report included North Carolina was one of the states with too much rain causing crop problems. NC is having serious crop problems, but not because of too much rain. Dry and windy with hot weather is doing the crops harm in North Carolina.     Nova Mutum is a municipality in Braz

Highlights IKAR increased its Russian wheat production estimate 500,000 mts to 82.0 mil. mts. The trade was looking for IKAR to lower production to as low as 75 million.   SovEcon, aka Andrey Sizov, puts total Russian grain production at 127.4 mil. mts, down 12% from last year. Wheat is expected to be down 13% at 80.7 mil. mts and corn down 12% at 14.6 mil. mts.   In hindsight, it appears Monday’s CBOT weakness was caused by the forecast that this week’s rain in the Western C

Highlights The US jobs data yesterday morning was much better than expected, which is very bad for commodities because good economic news means higher interest rates for a longer time. That means a stronger dollar, which makes US exports more expensive for foreign buyers. The US added 272,000 jobs in May; the market expected just 182,000. The unemployment rate was up 0.1% to 4.0% from last month. The average hourly earnings were up 0.4% from 0.2% in April.     Yesterday, Braz

Highlights Milling wheat in Paris was up $8 per mt (~21.5¢ per bu) due to expectations Russia’s wheat crop will be reduced to the low 80 something mil. mts., possibly less than 80. That crop is made or lost in June, harvest begins on or about July 1st.   247AG reports Mexico is buying so much USA corn because there are experiencing their worst drought since 2011.       Eduardo Vanin of Agrinvest Commodities summarized his conversation yesterday with farmers in Brazil: "Produc

Highlights We had good news about the US economy yesterday morning. S&P Global (an independent agency) reported yesterday morning that its U.S. Composite PMI Output Index, which tracks both the manufacturing and services sectors, jumped to 54.4 this month. That is the highest level since April 2022 and well above 51.3 in April 2024.   A reading above 50 indicates economic expansion. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast the index little changed at 51.1. The sharp increase

Highlights December corn closed above its 100-day moving average on Thursday, which attracted more technical buying on Friday.   Non-farm payroll showed 175,000 jobs added in April vs expectations of 240,000 to 283,000. Unemployment is estimated unchanged at 3.8%, but it was up a bit at 3.9%. Both indicate the economy is not doing as well as expected. That poor economic news yesterday morning knocked crude oil from 60¢ higher to a dollar lower on the idea US crude consumption

Tidbits Open interest refers to the number of trade positions on the books. The past two days saw the largest increase in open interest of crude oil call options in history. More than 350,000 crude oil call positions were established, surpassing the record of 2019.   Israel will hold a meeting of the Military Cabinet of Ministers today. This will be the 3rd meeting since the attack by Iran over the weekend. The final decision on the military response is expected to be today.