BASIC & RECENT MARKET INFO

Highlights Informa’s updated US yield numbers have corn at 177.5 vs. 175.1 in August with production at 15.395 billion vs. 15.111 in August. Soybean yields at 51.0 vs. 50.9 in August and production at 4.214 billion vs. 4.205 in August. Cash export traders in Brazil received some questions from the Chinese about soybean export capacity for the November-January window. China is concerned the low water in the US river system and the Panama Canal will restrict US exports of corn

One week from today will be the USDA’s September Crop Production and S&D Reports. All eyes will be on the US corn and beans yields as...

Labor Day is Monday. Markets will reopen Monday evening normal time. Carry is the return to storage. When the market sees plenty of carryover, it builds carry into the market by selling the nearby contracts and/or buying the deferred contracts. When the nearby contracts gain on the deferred contracts, the market is removing carry from the market because it does not want as much of the crop stored. If the commodity has negative carry (an inverted market), the market is scream

Comments on China Economy & AG China has a problem that makes its current debt problem a comparative simple issue. Here is the explanation as Roger sees it. For thousands of years, the Chinese retirement plan was for parents to have 8 to 12 children and hope half of them survive to adulthood so they can take care of mom and dad in their old age. China’s one-child policy became the law of the land 1980 as a measure to put a brake on China's population growth and to facilit

Highlights The Pro Farmer Crop Tour begins today and the war continues to escalate. China was expected to cut interest rates 10 and 15 basis points on the one year and five year Loan Prime Rate (LPR) this morning. Many analysts predicted a big reduction to the mortgage reference rate to revive credit demand and shore up the ailing property sector. China only cut the one-year loan prime rate (LPR) by 10 basis points to 3.45% from 3.55% previously, while the five-year LPR was

Economy and Market Comment First thing this morning, there was a large “dump” of economic data that the world marketplace expected to be gloom and doom for the world’s second largest economy and world’s largest importer of food and energy. Markets around the world were on edge all day Monday and down-right scared Monday evening. The economic data was a little worse than expected for the most part, but not so bad. What shocked the market was the People's Bank of China lowere

A person is “long” a market if he makes money when the price moves higher. Likewise, if a person is “short” the market, he makes money if the price goes down. If you have unpriced corn in the bin, you are long corn in the cash market. If you have corn in the field that is not priced, you are also long the cash corn market. A person who buys corn futures is long corn in the futures market. If you have a sold corn futures position, you are short the corn futures market. If y

Highlights Weekly export sales reported Thursday morning were a net reduction of 315,600 mts of old crop corn. It has been more than 20 years since weekly corn sales were a net reduction in May. The market knew China had cancelled about 570,000 mt of corn purchases two weeks ago, but the expectation was other buyers would offset the cancellations to get at least a net positive sale for the reporting week ending a week ago Thursday. None-the-less, corn futures were smartly hig

Highlights Russia said the sanctions the West has levied against them are “a barrier” to Russia’s continuation of the grain corridor for Ukraine exports. The current deal ends March 19th. Russia, the world’s largest wheat exporter, raised their wheat export tax 3.5% (~US 8¢ per bushel or $2.90 per mt) effective for February 15-21st. Ukraine’s marketing year-to-date corn, wheat and barley exports are down 28.7% from a year ago. While that is no surprise, it is a lot of grain

Tidbits The real (ree-al) is the currency of Brazil. As its exchange rate strengthens in the world markets, it makes Brazilian exports more expensive, just like every country with a strong currency. And, just like every other country with their currency increasing in value, the market value of their exports must be reduced to be competitive in the world marketplace. Brazil's corn and soybean prices are declining as the exchange rate of the real rises. Farmers are not sellin

Highlights Officials in Beijing increased public covid checks and locked-down some residential apartment complexes after the covid case load increased fourfold in recent days. The word “lockdown” scared the crude oil bulls yesterday, but crude held in there with a nice comeback of $1.56 to settle down only 67 cents. We highly recommend no long crude oil or petroleum product positions because of China’s battle with covid. Starting Jan 5th, the US will require negative covid te

This is Jeremey Frost with some not so fearless comments from www.dailymarketminute.com for Wright on the Market. I want to say thanks to Roger for allowing me the opportunity to share some of my thoughts with his customers on the grain markets. But before I do that I want to share with you a little about me and what I do. I am a former CHS Grain buyer for 20 plus years before going out on my own. I buy and sell cash grain for Banghart Properties, we mainly buy specialty cr

Highlights Soybean oil went down the daily limit and “locked” there in five contract months. “Locked” means there was no trading at limit down. Everybody wanted to sell, but no one wanted to buy and, so, no trades. There is a huge difference between “trading” at limit down and “locked” limit down. Due to soybean oil closing down the daily price change limit yesterday, the entire soybean complex will have expanded limits today. Soybean limits are $1.50, soybean oil 7 cents a p

Highlights Weekend elections in Taiwan changed the government leadership from an alliance with the USA to supporting re-alignment with mainland Communist China. This political shift redirects economic and military priorities directly toward mainland China. With the terrible riots protesting the Chinese Communist government in mainland China in the weeks leading up to Taiwan’s election, the election result kinda makes a person wonder who was in charge of the vote counting. But

Tidbits Protests at China Embassies are happening around the world this morning. Andrey Sizov’s comments on the China situation: "My information bubble really wants to believe that unrest in China is bullish commodities because now "authorities have to get rid of their zero-covid policy" We don't know how big is unrest, media talks about "thousands" on streets and it's 1.4 bln country. It's a regime ruled by a communist party which recently has become more authoritarian...don

Market Expects More Supply Chain Disruptions Massive weekend protests continue against the governments in Iran (human rights), China (covid lock-down) and Brazil (presidential election results). Iran sells crude oil and buys wheat, China buys crude oil and soybeans, Brazil sells corn and soybeans. The market took a negative attitude last evening. It was interesting that crude oil, which starts trading two hours before the CBOT, traded about 20 cents lower for those two hours

Highlights All the crude oil traders saw or heard yesterday was more cases of covid infection in China than any time since the dark days...

Tidbits Tomorrow at 11 AM Central Time, USDA will issue its monthly S&D. It looks like corn yields could be increased and exports should be reduced. But remember, the anticipation of an event will move the market more than confirmation of the event. A somewhat larger corn carryover is already priced into the market. Will the increased carryover be larger or smaller than expected? The answer to that question will determine how much the market moves after the report. We do not

Tidbits China’s government grain stock piler, Sinograin, announced yesterday (Sunday) it had agreed to buy 10 million mts of soybeans from Archer-Daniels-Midland Co, Syngenta, Louis Dreyfus, Bunge Ltd, Cargill Corp and COFCO International during a signing ceremony at an event in Shanghai, which included crude oil, coal, iron ore, etc. Before you mortgage the farm and buy soybean futures, be advised this is an annual event. China imports 90 to 101 million mt of soybeans a year

Highlights China’s health officials issued a statement Saturday afternoon saying it will continue with its "dynamic-clearing" (aka: zero tolerance) approach to COVID-19 cases adding that measures must be implemented more precisely. We are not sure if "more precisely" means more or less strictly. Asked if there would be a change of policy in the near term, disease control official Hu Xiang said China's measures are "completely correct, as well as the most economical and effect