BASIC & RECENT MARKET INFO

Highlights August options expire this Friday. All July basis contracts and long July CBOT futures positions must be rolled or priced no later than close of business July 30th, a week from today. The weather forecast for Canada and the Corn Belt has changed to much warmer and drier. Yesterday morning Wright on the Market reported that the number of rain days in the ten-day forecast for the Western Corn Belt had 12 fewer days of rain than Sunday morning and the Eastern Corn Bel

Highlights Expectation of an event will move the market more than confirmation of the event.   Yesterday, the market was trading a corn yield of 182 (USDA 181) bushels and a bean yield of 54 (USDA 52) bushels and a perfect weather forecast.   The market expected both crops to gain 1% in the good or excellent categories on yesterday’s crop ratings.   The market also traded a Trump presidency and that will cause a trade war with China.   If all those things happen, those events

Highlights The first sentence of yesterday’s report was: "Sunday’s weather forecast indicates remnants of Hurricane Beryl will probably bring some rain to the Eastern Corn Belt over the next 7 days, where rain is really needed." We should have added,  "That means corn and beans will be smartly lower today."   We certainly did not expect the magnitude of the losses we saw, but a test of the contract lows on December corn at $4.12 would not have surprised us. Instead, December

Market Comment Kevin Duling from Maupin, Oregon sent these comments to his clients yesterday afternoon about the USDA numbers: "After the selloff, I assumed numbers were horrible. They were not that bad. In fact, when it comes to the corn/soy acreage, 3.6 million acres of the total corn had not been planted as of June 1 and 12.8 million acres of soybeans had not been planted. It is very likely that at least 1-2 million acres each of corn and soybeans did not get planted becau

Highlights "North Carolina will more than likely be labeled as a State of Emergency next week or the following in regards to drought. Last rainfall we saw was 4 weeks ago, Corn started to pollinate 3 weeks ago. Most corn is tasseled but has aborted putting off an ear or silking at all. Beans are dying in the field and look terrible. Damage seems to be state wide with damage even in our darker, wetter soils in eastern NC that typically produce big yields. By far one of the wor

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 Agrinvest Commodities’ Eduardo Vanin yesterday morning comments: "Basis FOB Brazil and CFR China dropped quickly last week. Over the last 30 days, the roller-coaster of basis in the CFR China market has been intense. China is covered more than 80% of July shipment, but less than 15% for August . Sino is rotating stocks. A new soybean auction was announced for this week (990,000 tons). More trades were reported out of Argentina and the US Gulf during the week, but n

Highlights The October Census Bureau crush was reported after the close yesterday and it was an all-time record high for any month. The US has never crushed 200 mil bu of beans in one month until October 2023. The soybean crush was 201.4 mil. bu., a bit above the market’s expectation of 201.1 mil bu. and well above the 197 mil. bu. a year ago.   Soybean oil stocks were expected to be 1.540 billion lbs, but soy oil stocks were just 1.082 bil. lbs. Nobody has ever reported an e

Highlights Yesterday December corn took out its previous 2023 low of $4.73½ with a trade down to $4.69. It settled at $4.71½, down 4¾¢. None of the wheats took out last week’s low for the year and November beans were down 23½¢, but still $1.86 above its May 31st low for the year. Two grain vessels reached Ukraine’s Chornomorsk Black Sea grain port on Sunday as Ukraine tries to prove it can ship grain out of its Black Sea ports without UN, Turkey, and Russian participation.

Highlights Initial harvest reports are pointing toward smaller crops than USDA projected for soybeans and corn. Consensus is that soybeans are suffering here in September more yield loss than corn and we would agree. The nation’s corn conditions lost 3% out of the top two categories to 53%; the market expected a 2% decline. Corn in the dough stage 93% vs. 92% average. Corn dented 67% vs. 65% average. Corn maturity is 18% versus 16% average. Soybeans lost 5% to 53% good or exc

Highlights Pro Farmer Final for 2023: These Pro Farmer estimates include factors like weather, maturity & areas outside the tour's coverage. Pro Farmer increased harvested corn acres by 675,000 based on the August FSA data, but they did not adjust bean acres. Soybeans and especially corn are expected to open higher Sunday given Pro Farmer yields and the weather. This will most likely be the most bullish news the corn market will get until the September 12th USDA Crop Product

Highlights Yesterday’s Pro Farmer reports for Nebraska and Indiana: These much better than expected Pro Farmer yields will make it very difficult for the harvest reports to be “better than expected.” That means we can be more confident that the fall low will be made before harvest begins. So much for the 41 nations who were going to crash the dollar yesterday. The dollar index traded higher yesterday than it has since June 12th. It has gained 4% during a strong uptrend since

Highlights We received this from Andrew late Monday evening: "Western Iowa is fading fast. There was still some very good potential for good yields in our area, but this week will kill that. There are still some decent looking crops out and about but not above average in my opinion. Beans are starting to look like they’re turning, but the plants are just dying. We have had subpar moisture going on year 4. Subsoil was non existent at the start of the season. Corn looks to be h

Highlights The Corn Belt is expected to get some scattered showers off and on next week. It looks like everyone should get at least a half inch. If actual rainfall comes as predicted, for most of you it will be nice, but it will not make the corn crop. Throw-in July options expired yesterday, the markets were over-bought (too high, too fast), and it was the end of a week, profit-taking was the order of the day. We still have a week before July arrives. We are a very long way

Highlights Yesterday’s mid-day weather models added light rains for the I-States, but confidence is low and there is little agreement from other models. There is agreement that temperatures will be above normal for the majority of crop areas from Canada to the Gulf Coast. The nation’s corn crop condition declined 6% last week to 55% good or excellent. That was 3% worse than the market expected, the lowest for this week since 1992 and the lowest for any week of any year s

Highlights The U.S. corn conditions are 61% good/excellent, down 3% from last week and 1% worse than the market expected. The 5-year average for this week is 70% good/excellent. The soybean condition is 59% good/excellent, also down 3% for last week, but 1% better than the market expected. This is the worst bean crop rating for this week since 2008. See all the state summaries for all crops at grainstats.com According to AgRural Consultancy: Farmers in Brazil have harveste

Highlights Crop Progress Report this afternoon and USDA Crop Production and S&D 11 AM Central tomorrow. The corn to bean ratio is normally 2.4:1, meaning it takes 2.4 bushels of corn to equal the value of one bushel of beans. This morning, the March corn to March soybean ratio is 1.98:1, which means corn is way to expensive or beans are way too cheap. A backup of more than 2,000 boats and barges on the Mississippi River began moving Sunday as two closures along the waterway r

Highlights Soybeans were hammered from the opening yesterday as Argentina is trying to motivate growers to sell their beans by offering a better exchange rate through September 30th. We thought this was a non-event because it does not change the supply nor the demand for soybeans. It turned out to be a big deal for at least one day. Argentine farmers have been hanging onto their beans to hedge the 60+% inflation. Other analysts say beans were lower due to China’s additional C

Highlights Ukraine has started or will start a counter-offensive to retake the Kherson region (oblast they call it) in southeast Ukraine. That is wheat country and a Kherson is port city, which is why wheat was so strong today. Corn was strong because the Pro Farmer Tour bullish corn numbers were released after the close Friday and because wheat was so strong today. Feed rations can be 20% wheat to replace corn, so, to that extent, wheat can pull up the price of corn. Also, U

Highlights Yesterday morning, the USDA reported the sale of 146,000 mts of new crop soybeans to unknown. Putin signed a decree to increase Russian military personnel by 137,000 people, up to a total of 1.15 million. Average daily charter rate for Panamax Ocean Freighters, which usually carry coal or grain cargoes of about 55,000 to 70,000 tonnes, decreased $606 Thursday to $12,816. Cape Freighters transport about 150,000 mts of grains, iron ore or coal. The average daily c