Grain Marketing Education, News & Strategies

Highlights The most important price outlook indicators for corn, wheat and beans without any reliable fundamental news from the USDA is carry (daily), basis (weekly) and technical outlook. Let’s take a look at the May to July carry for the first three days this week: Corn: May gained 4½¢ on the July = Bullish Beans: May gained 11¼¢ on the July = Bullish Soft red winter wheat: May gained 5¢ on the July = Bullish Hard red winter wheat: May lost ½¢ on the July = steady with a

Highlights There was a lot of US and world economic news yesterday. While none of it was terrible, none of it was as “good” as expected. For example, unexpectedly, the Central Banks of Australia and New Zealand raised interest rates by 50 basis points (half a percent). Argentina did announce its third soy/dollar deal, which begins Saturday. The conversion will be 300 pesos per US dollar vs. the official exchange rate of 210 pesos. That is a 42.5% over the market premium. Tha

Highlights Cargill and Viterra announced they will no longer export Russian grain as of beginning the new crop marketing year. That does not mean Russia will be shut-out of the wheat export market, but it will hurt them. The US wheat marketing year begins June 1st; the Russian wheat marketing year begins July 1st. USDA announced yesterday morning the sale of 204,000 mts of old crop corn to China. That is the 11th old crop corn export sale in the last 12 days. All but one of

Highlights As expected by the market, the Federal Reserve raised interest rates 25 basis points yesterday. The interest rate hike was considered friendly based on market action, but US Treasurer, Janet Yellen, said later yesterday the government is not considering insuring all uninsured bank deposits, something many analysts expected said would go a long way to bring confidence in the banking system. Tidbits USDA announced yesterday morning the sale of 178,000 mts of old cro

Highlights Crude oil traded 80¢ to $1.22 higher most of Tuesday evening to about the start of the business day in Europe. Crude oil prices lost $6 before recovering almost $2 on the settlement. It traded lower than any time since early December of 2021 and is 50% of its price just 53 weeks ago. The reason for the weakness in crude oil was the irrational fear of a world-wide bank failure as the troubled Credit Suisse Bank was once again in the spotlight when Saudi Arabia’s ma

Highlights The USDA’s domestic corn and world corn carryover projections were both larger than expected. Corn finished the day down 8 to 9¢. The USDA’s domestic wheat and world wheat carryover projections were both less than expected. Soft red winter and hard red spring wheat finished the day down 9 to 11¢. Hard red winter was up 1 to down 5¢. The USDA’s domestic soybean and world soybean carryover projections were both less than expected. Soybeans finished the day up 2 to

Roger’s reference yesterday to Market Analyst Bill Crowder recommending his clients sell all corn and beans needs to be modified. Bill did send the email to his clients, but he was forwarding Bill Ryan’s email. Mr. Ryan’s email is: bill@crokerrhyne.com We apologize to Mr. Bill Crowder. Thanks, once again, John. Highlights Russia said they will not sign the Ukraine grain corridor deal unless Russia's agricultural and fertilizer producers are “taken into account.” With or witho

USDA 2023 Ag Outlook Forum The USDA 2023 Ag Outlook Forum took center stage yesterday, but it was not nearly as important as the market thinks it was. All these numbers, including acreages, will change a lot in the coming months. These numbers are simply the benchmarks from which market analysts will comment on for the next 12 months. One of the two things you need to know is the number of acres expected to be planted. Corn and wheat acres were higher than expected, but the

Highlights Yesterday morning's US retail sales were reported up 3% in January vs. expectations of 2%. Good economic news is bad news for commodity prices as the dollar index goes up… you know the drill. Brazil’s soybean basis has weakened about 40 cents a bushel this week. That was the main reason beans were so weak yesterday. The crushers are getting enough beans to fill their storage space and now the export buyers will be able to get some beans. Thus, the extended bean ex

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,

Highlights The Federal Reserve increased its base interest rate 25 basis points (one-fourth of 1%) yesterday as expected. The market acted like it was expecting a larger increase as the dollar index went sharply lower after the news and commodity prices recovered. Brazil's soybean January exports were 850,000 mts, down 65% from a year ago. Rain every day is a problem at harvest time. The U.S. ag attaché in Argentina slashed its estimate of the country’s soybean crop to 36

Highlights India announced yesterday morning it will auction government owned wheat to retard domestic prices. That news shot wheat prices higher. Perhaps somebody will remind the world that 2023 will be the fourth consecutive year that the world carryover will be smaller than the year before. On the other hand, Russia said 94% of their winter wheat is rated good with sufficient snow cover for insultation and water. The US will send 31 M1 Abram tanks to Ukraine and Germany

Highlights The UN Secretary-General who is at the annual World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, said the world economy is in sad shape with multiple negative issues, which compound each other. The debate about the US debt ceiling is always a negative for markets. The Democrats are saying the Republicans are willing to stop social security checks, medicare payments and default on the national debt. It did not help attitudes when Microsoft and Amazon both laid-off 10,000

After Friday’s normal closing time, CBOT will not reopen until Monday evening in observance of MLK. Highlights The USDA will dump a truck load of numbers at 10 AM Mountain Time today. We do not expect any big surprises, but if there is one (or more) surprise, we expect it will be bullish in the form the USDA will say the US grain inventory is less than the market expects and/or the South American crops are smaller than expected. Any bearish news will be a gift opportunity for

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

Tidbits More than 150 missles plus an unknown number of Iranian drones hit Ukraine's energy infrastructure yesterday. People in Nigeria are wading through fast-flowing water, holding one another to avoid being swept away. The torrent was, until recently, the East-West Road in Nigeria's Rivers state, the gateway to the nation's oil and gas. Now parts of Rivers, along with large swaths of 32 other states, are inundated by the worst flooding in 12 years. Nigeria is a major crud

Highlights The hospitals in China will have more than 5.8 million beds occupied during the current epidemic. Deaths in the big cities are running 4 to 8 times the normal rate. The largest port city, Shanghai, is in the worst shape. None-the-less, the top brass of China’s government said yesterday morning total quarantines or lock-downs will not be re-introduced until after a review in February, if even then. It is clear that lock-downs to control contagious diseases are like

Highlights Before December 5th, every controlled nuclear reaction that has ever occurred in this world produced a huge amount of energy from very little fuel by atomic fission, the destruction of an atom’s nucleus (uranium) to form smaller atoms. Since 1909, scientists have known nuclear fusion was possible. Fusion reactions fuse (join) two or more atoms together to form an atom with slightly lighter mass (weight in gravity) than the combined mass of the atoms that were fuse

Highlights Ukrainian drones struck a third Russian airfield hundreds of kilometers into Russia. The range of the drone attack surprised a lot of people; but just another escalation of the war. Yesterday, China announced sweeping changes to its COVID policy; the people have more freedom to circulate than any time the past three, yes, three years! That is bullish beans and crude oil as they will be able to get back to work consuming more of everything, but remember, the anticip

Highlights The House of Representatives passed a resolution yesterday to force the adoption of the agreement by the railroads and the unions and passed a second resolution requiring the railroads to allow seven days of sick leave for the union members. The Senate must approve both measures for it to be sent to the White House for Biden to sign. Will the Senate pass the same two bills? Probably. Will Biden sign it? Probably. Will all of the above happen within a matter of days