BASIC & RECENT MARKET INFO

Highlights Cash wheat export traders are saying China has probably bought more milling quality wheat this year than ever before. Their wheat crop problem was too much rain at harvest. The past few days, traders say China bought about 2 million mt of milling wheat from Australia and the same tonnage from France or the EU which probably put China wheat purchases at record large. Dr. Cordonnier reduced his corn and soybean production estimates for Brazil by 2 million mts each.

Highlights The EU Commissioner for Energy called an emergency meeting yesterday to discuss the possibility of a diesel supply shortage. One EU official said to the press, "Oil is important. Not enough diesel could lead to strikes. Is this a 1973 moment or not?" In late October 1973, Arab Oil Exporting countries refused to sell crude to countries who supported Israel in the Yom Kippur War that began on the 6th of October. The serious fighting was pretty much over within 10 da

Tidbits Argentina's ruling coalition did much better than expected to lead the country's general election and set the stage for a vote next month between Socialist Sergio Massa (36% of the vote) and far-right libertarian radical Javier Milei (30% of the vote) with 80% of the votes counted. A conservative candidate had 23.7% of the vote. The war in Eastern Europe continues to escalate, but as rapidly as it did in the warmer months. The fighting in the Middle-East is rapidly e

Tidbits Louis Dreyfus Company (LDC) announced Friday the construction of a soybean processing plant in Upper Sandusky, Ohio with integrated crushing, vegetable oil refining and lecithin production and packaging capabilities.   Construction will begin in early 2024; the new facility will employ over 100 people with an annual soy crushing capacity of 55 million bushels (1,500,000 mts). Annual production will be 320,000 mts of soybean oil and 7,500 mts of lecithin.   Dreyfus rec

Received 6:40 AM yesterday, thanks, Jason: "CHS Fairmont, MN soybean basis firmed from -.20 to + .5 today. Thanks for the great info Wright on the Market team." Today is Friday and harvest weekend. Think pre-hedging this afternoon before the close. Highlights New unemployment claims were 198,000, 12,000 fewer than expected and strong Netflix earnings had Wall Street trading higher yesterday morning when Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said the labor market is so st

House member Jim Jordan received 200 votes to be Speaker, but needs 217 to obtain speakership as 20 Republicans voted against Jordan. Republican leadership announced the House will reconvene today at 11 AM Eastern to discuss when to vote again. Highlights US retail sales were up 0.7% for September; the market expected a number closer to 0.3%. Industrial production was up 0.3%; the market expected up 0.1%, which are two more reasons the Fed is likely to raise interest rates ag

Politics Not a word about Ukraine’s corruption and its links with US political figures the past 24 hours. Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) is the leading candidate for the Speaker position and he said he is against Ukraine aid. The war will not continue very long without US aid. If the war ends, is that bearish or bullish wheat and corn? In the first year or two, it will depend on how well the two enemies can work together to get everything up and running. About half of the House Rep

Highlights Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell suggested interest rates will be “higher for longer” and could stay above 5% this year and next. Yesterday, the Fed left interest rates unchanged, as expected, but Powell did not rule out another interest-rate hike this year. Ukraine said they are ready to resume grain from exports from Black Sea Ports using a temporary corridor, with the first dry bulk carriers in place. The bulk carriers Resilient Africa and Aroyat arrived

Tidbits Mark has a friend near Oto in Woodbury County, Iowa who has cut two fields of beans. The first was 15 bu/ac, the second field 35 bu/ac. The war continues to escalate. Fertilizer Between January and July 2023, the United States increased purchases of fertilizers from Russia to a record US$944 million according to RIA Novosti using US Statistical Service numbers. Russia became #2 fertilizer supplier to the United States. The value of Russian fertilizer imports to the U

Marketing Comment The soybean meal and soybean oil marketing years end September 30. As always, there are shipments previously bought to be shipped this marketing year, but, for any one of hundreds of reasons, the actual shipments get delayed until after the end of the marketing year, making the shipment in the next marketing year. Yesterday’s Weekly Export Sales showed net cancellations for the current marketing year for meal and oil. Those who want lower prices are making

Highlights Rapidly forming El Niño conditions over the central and eastern Pacific Ocean have increased the probability of a strong episode this winter that would likely raise temperatures and reduce gas consumption in the United States. Sea surface temperatures in the most critical region of the ocean have warmed rapidly and have been almost +1.3°C above the long-term seasonal average so far in August having started the year -0.7°C below average in January. Since 1973, durin

Highlights For the seventh consecutive day, the USDA announced yesterday 198,000 tons of beans were sold to the unknown. The weather still looks to be hot and dry across much of the Corn Belt through next weekend. As of this morning, we expect Tuesday’s USDA corn and bean crop conditions to lose 2 to 3% out of the top two categories, but after the weekend, we may be expecting 3 to 4 or even 5% decline. A few days after the August USDA Crop Report, FSA released its certifie

Highlights The Panama Canal expects to maintain restrictions on daily vessel transit and maximum draft for at least 10 more months due to low water levels. This situation will make the Mississippi River Inland Waterway System less competitive, but will boost demand for rail shipments from the Upper Midwest to the PNW ports. In a move to ease a bottleneck that surpassed 160 vessels earlier this month, the Canal’s authority recently opened two more passage slots per day for no

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 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

Written yesterday morning: "Roger, I am in one of the dry pockets of NE Iowa (about 45 minutes north of Waterloo). I have had a little over an inch of rain since the 4th of July. Yesterday, when I was taking a load of beans to Shell Rock, I saw 3 choppers taking corn. I don't ever remember seeing choppers rolling by Aug 17. I walked some fields last night and pollination was good but seed depth is lacking. Several farmers I talked to have speculated we will have lower test we

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

The Story of Two Clients Chris and Doug were email subscription clients in May 2022. Both farm in Iowa and both became full service clients of Lance’s in early August of 2022. Chris is not going to renew his subscription. He is very upset with Wright on the Market because markets have gone down and all we do is keep saying markets will go higher. Doug renewed his subscription at once upon receiving the invoice this month. What is the difference? Same emails. Same full serv

Jacob of Wahpeton, North Dakota reports: "Wheat harvest is rolling in the southeastern part of the Red River valley in North Dakota. I just wanted to give you a little update. Hearing a lot of 35 to 50 bushel yields with very low test weights. Typical for around here is 55 to 70 bushel yields with pretty good test weight. Proteins have been high though, so likely no premium for protein being that everybody's wheat got stressed this year." Jake has a very successful grain mar

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