Grain Marketing Education, News & Strategies

FSA Program News and Updates The 2024 ARC/PLC Program enrollment and election change deadline is March 15, 2024. To be enrolled in the program you MUST sign a contract every year; the program does not auto-renew. CRP General Sign Up is underway. All General offers need to be submitted by March 29, 2024, for the ranking process. CONAB production report to be released within a few hours. Highlights Definition of “B3” is short for the São Paulo Stock, Commodities and Futur

USDA will issue its monthly S&D Friday at 10 AM Mountain Time. It will be a non-event for US numbers. No production changes on US crops until May and domestic demand changes will most likely be unchanged as USDA historically waits until April to make demand changes after seeing the March Quarterly Inventory Report, which is released on the last business day of March. World production is what to watch on Friday. With the USDA predicting more corn and beans from South America

First notice day for deliveries on March CBOT contracts is this Thursday, which is usually an up day for markets after (usually) a down day the previous day as all the holders of long positions in the March futures are liquidating to avoid being assigned bushels. Translation: Your futures broker and your merchandiser want you to price or roll all March long positions before the close tomorrow. Highlights More scuttlebutt Monday about the possibility of more corn exports to Ch

Highlights Dr. Michael Cordonnier lowered his Brazilian soybeans production estimate to 145 mil mt (USDA 156), down 2 mil mts while leaving his Brazilian corn production estimate unchanged at 112 mil mts (USDA 124). Dr. Cordonnier left his Argentine soybean production at 50 mil. mts (USDA 50) and corn production 54 mil. mts (USDA 55). Agricomp Commodities downgraded Argentina’s soybean crop 1.88 mil mts to 49.5 mil mts due to recent excess heat and lack of rain. They stat

AG Outlook Forum USDA's 100th Annual Agricultural Outlook Forum, Cultivating the Future will take place this Thursday and Friday (Feb 15-16) at the Crystal City Gateway Marriott in Arlington, VA. USDA describes the Outlook Forum: With over 30 sessions and 120 speakers, the forum offers a rich and diverse program covering a range of timely topics such as commodity markets, trade, technology, climate change and more. Roger describes it as a very expensive dog and pony show

Highlights Federal Reserve Chairman Powell reiterated Sunday night on 60 Minutes that interest rates will stay higher longer than expected and a March cut is "not likely." Argentina will be hot and dry for a couple more days. Their crops have been hard hit by the weather the past three weeks, but rain is on the way later this week. Meanwhile, excessive rain in the main growing areas of Brazil have been great for late planted beans, but it is making it very difficult to ha

Tidbits The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) has 12 members: the 7 members of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve, the President of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York; and four of the remaining eleven Reserve Bank presidents, who serve one-year terms on a rotating basis. The FOMC will begin a 2-day meeting today to decide if they should change the Fed’s discount rate, which determines the interest rate for the US economy. No interest rate change is expected th

Tidbits Strategic Farm Marketing lowered their Brazilian soybean crop estimate by 12 mil mts to 145 mil mt. (USDA 157). Weather will be quite dry the next two weeks in Argentina, where they have great crops growing. You can see on the ENSO up-dated chart, El Niño appears to be coming to an end very quickly, which is about 30 to 60 days out after the water temperature declines below the El Niño threshold. ENSO Update:

Tidbits Yesterday morning, USDA reported the sale of 126,700 mts of old crop corn to Mexico. NOPA December crush was a record at 193.5 mil bu. Previous record was October and November close to it. Soy oil stocks of 1.36 bil lbs were above expectations. Aprosoja, an association representing thousands of grain farmers in Brazil, projects soybeans production of 135 million metric tons. Aprosoja Brasil's estimate is lower than private forecasters' projections of production th

Highlights Reuters Global Ag Reporter Karen Braun reported after the close yesterday: "CBOT soybeans have tumbled 4% so far in 2024, soybeans' worst start to a year in exactly 40 years. Monday's low of $12.36/bu is the most-active contract's lowest since Dec. 2021. Beans are now in oversold territory per the relative strength index." Do not mortgage the farm and buy soybean futures because Karen said the relative strength index (RSI) is in oversold territory. It has been in

Tidbits Dr. Michael Cordonnier reduced his Brazilian soybean production by 2 mil mts to 151 million. StoneX cut its estimate for Brazil's soybean crop to 152.8 mil mts, down from its previous estimate of 161.9 mil. mts and corn was reduced 1.4 mil. mts to 124.6 mil mts. Agronomic firm, Pine Agronegócios, reported yesterday: "Harvest of soja in Campo Verde/Mato Grosso an area of 300 ha (741 acres) with a yield of ~20 sacs/ha. (17.81 bu per acre). The region is one of the m

Highlights The claim early yesterday morning that Ukraine’s military attacked a Russian landing ship off the coast of Crimea turned out to be true. The Russian troop landing ship, Novocherkassk, near the port city of Feodosia in the eastern coastline area of Crimea was damaged by cruise missiles. Russian officials claim the ship was merely damaged with light casualties, while an Ukrainian Air Force official said the ship was destroyed. It was the Russian confirmation of dam

Holiday CBOT Trading Hours Friday December 22: normal trading hours Sunday Dec 24: markets closed Monday Dec 25: markets closed Tuesday Dec 26: markets open at 8:30 AM CST. Friday Dec 29: normal trading hours Sunday Dec 31: markets closed Monday Jan 1: markets closed Tuesday Jan 2: markets open at 8:30 AM CST. Highlights Last evening’s GFS model run was drier & Euro model was wetter for the next week in the dry areas of Brazil. The GFS model has been more correct as of the pa

Highlights Early this morning, a land-based cruise missile launched from Houthi-controlled Yemen struck a commercial tanker vessel 60 nautical miles north of Bab al-Mandab Strait (Red Sea/Suez Canal area) causing a fire and damage but no casualties. Yesterday’s mid-day weather model runs took quite a bit of the rain for Northern and Central Brazil out of the first and, to a lesser extent, the second week of the forecast and moved the rain to the third week out. Yesterda

Highlights Benson-Quinn analysts reported yesterday morning: "North and Central Brazil caught 60% of the region. More scattered activity expected today. Then dry until next weekend. Feels like this region is turning the corner. Expect more rains in S Brazil (where it has been very wet the past two months), but it also sounds like some planting progress is being made." And this yesterday afternoon: "USA weekly corn export inspections (yesterday) were best since June at 1.16

Highlights Diego Meurer posted Monday morning: "I traveled 2300 km in the State of Mato Grosso Brazil and the scenario of soybean crops is the same, entire crops dying, the rains did not arrive and those that did arrive were in low volume or in indigenous reserves. Those that apparently appear to be beautiful have no load and the beautiful crops are pivot crops, irrigated. Mato Grosso is heading towards the biggest crop failure ever seen." However, Alê Delara posted yesterd

Highlights Yesterday’s mid-day weather forecast went drier for Central Brazil for next week. This major crop area will receive rains through this Friday, but amounts will not be enough to end the drought as November rains are running about half of normal this week. The extended outlook keeps high pressure over the north while Southern Brazil remains too wet, delaying planting and destroying some of crops that did get planted. Several wheat contracts made new lows yesterday

Market Comment From Russ, who is located in Central South Dakota very close to the North Dakota border: "Our area and surrounding areas had and having the best corn crop ever. Piles all over at elevators and some elevators only taking contract or cash sales, but not many yet. A lot in fields yet. Some piles are wet 16 to 20, but normal for our area to have those piles, just not this size in a while. So, if basis is -60 for Jan Feb, should be lock in when hauling some out, w

Upcoming S&D The USDA will issue its monthly S&D Thursday at 10 AM Mountain Time. The market changes expected from October: Corn yield: increased to 173.2 vs. 173.0 and carryover increased 20 million bushels to 2.131 billion. Soybean yields: unchanged at 49.6 bu with the carryover 2 million more bushels at 222 million. World wheat carryover: down 300,000 mt to 257.8 million mt. Highlights Poet at Shell Rock, IA pushed their basis to +20Z (20¢ over Dec futures for 1st half

Highlights The Nation’s corn crop is 71% harvested, 1% more than the high end of the 3% range. That is 5% ahead of the 5-year average pace. The beans are 85% harvested; the market range of expectations was 82 to 85%. That is 7% ahead of the average progress for this date. Cotton is 49% harvested, 2% behind the normal harvest pace. Sorghum 69% harvested, 1% behind the normal harvest pace. Sugar beets are 84% harvested, 3% ahead of the normal harvest pace. Winter wheat is