BASIC & RECENT MARKET INFO

Highlights China's former Deputy Public Security Minister, Sun Lijun, who had been denounced for months "seriously damaging the unity of the party", has been jailed for life. The announcement was made early today just ahead of a key Communist Party congress. What is more important and may or may not be related to the Security Minister’s problems, late this afternoon China time, all commercial flights into and out of Beijing and about 60% of China’s commercial flights have be

Highlights Yesterday morning, USDA announced the sale of 136,000 mts of 2022 crop soybeans to China. That is rather surprising given they just bought 3+ million mt of Argentine beans at prices $25 below US prices. What does China know that we don’t? For one thing, they have a good idea how many beans they are going to need between now and when the new crop Brazilian beans become available in late January. Keep in mind, Brazil harvested a 2022 bean crop that was 20 to 25 mil

Highlights Railroads reached a tentative agreement with unions, which, if approved by the union members, there will be no strike. Very good news for everyone in the grain market, indeed. The agreement provides rail employees a 24% wage increase during the five-year period between 2020 and 2024, while also paying out an immediate $11,000 per union member upon adoption. U.S. natural gas futures fell 8% on Thursday on the news of the probable settlement. Crude oil prices were s

Highlights Yesterday morning, USDA announced the sale of 196,000 mts of new crop soybeans to China. Yesterday morning the government reported the Consumer Price Index (CPI, the measure of inflation at the retail level) was 8.5%, down from June’s 9.1%. The market expected 8.7%. Crude oil recovered its losses yesterday afternoon to settle higher on the news that the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) inventory had declined 5.3 million barrels last week. Gasoline stocks were do

Highlights It is bullish for the price outlook when deliveries are light or non-existent on a futures contract. The were no bean complex deliveries assigned on August futures last evening. The oldest long dates are: Meal: 23 December 2020 Oil: 29 June 2022 Beans: 24 February 2022 Bulgarian farmers are blocking roads to protest against cheap grain imports from Ukraine. All the roads the grain trucks from Ukraine travel are blocked. Imagine being a hungry person needed that che

Very few analysts dared predict the crop ratings released by USDA this afternoon, but Benson-Quinn analysts expected a slight downgrade. Corn percentage in the top two categhories was steady and beans improved 1%. The corn in Illinois and Indiana improved 3%, but Nebraska was down 3% and Iowa was down 4%. That sounds bullish for corn. The story was pretty much the same for beans. The numbers: In hind sight, today’s trading was dominated by macro-economic factors rather than

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Highlights Heatwaves are predicted to sweep through northern China the next two weeks with temperatures exceeding 40 degrees Celsius (103 F) in some regions. Italy declared a state of emergency for areas surrounding the River Po, which accounts for roughly a third of the country's agricultural production. The area is suffering its worst drought in 70 years. The US economy may have contracted during the second quarter. With the confirmed contraction of the US economy in the

It appears the rain in parts of Iowa and Illinois coupled with the fear of the economic end of the world were the two reasons grain and oilseeds were so weak today.

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Highlights Yesterday, Target, Lowes, Macy's, and Walmart all issued their quarterly financial reports and both were major, major...

Highlights The market expects the Federal Reserve will increase interest rates this afternoon by a half to three-quarters of a percent....

Roger, Question What happens to grain if the US falls into a recession; haven't seen anybody say much about it??????? Certainly, in...