BASIC & RECENT MARKET INFO

Highlights The weather forecast has rain coming to the dry areas of South America a day sooner next week than expected yesterday, but the wet area looks less likely to dry out, but rainfall amounts are reduced. Thirty minutes before Wall Street closed yesterday, Trump said Saturday would be tariff decision  day. Trump added he’s still mulling whether the tariffs will hit oil too. “We may or may not, we’re going to make that determination probably tonight based on oil prices”.

Tidbits / Market Comment When it comes to marketing grain and oil seeds,  you are living in historic times. Never have we had so many variables, any one of which could send the market sharply higher or lower.   Your market plan needs to include  risk management , which requires some mental time and maybe money.   Soybeans have the potential to drop a dollar or more. Now that the 45Z decision has been delayed for as many as 60 days, the upside potential for beans depends on ho

Highlights The weather forecasters have come to the consensus there will be significant rainfall in the dry areas of South America starting this weekend. That is what last Monday’s ENSO update indicated with the rising water temperature and our rain day charts have been increasing the number of days with rain in the ten day forecast all week.   Uruguay borders Argentina to its west and southwest, Brazil to its north and northeast while bordering the Río de la Plata to the sou

Highlights The market reaction to the USDA numbers was bullish for corn and beans. Corn should have been stronger than it was given as the 2024 corn yield was reduced 3.8 bushels per acre.      The USDA pretty much admitted they do not know what they are doing or that they had been lying to us about the corn and soybean inventory.   USDA added 200,000 acres of corn harvested, but cut the yield by a whopping 3.8 bushels to 179.3. The lowest trade yield guess was 181.3.   The b

Highlights Why did corn and beans crash and burn yesterday?   The Weekly Export Sales report issued yesterday morning was terrible as it always is Christmas week. It should never be a surprise, but poor sales Christmas week is always a disappointment.    The House of Representatives was scheduled to select a Speaker yesterday. The last time they tried to elect a Speaker, it took three weeks! Thankfully, after the CBOT closed, Mike Johnson, (R-La.) was re-elected to lead the H

Tidbits March corn settled a quarter cents higher yesterday, but higher none-the-less for the sixth consecutive day.    More importantly, March corn settled above the 200 day moving average price two consecutive days, confirming a technical breakout to the upside. The dry  weather forecast for Argentina and Southern Brazil is the leading fundamental factor, but bullish technical signals are here to stay for a while as well. The weekly export sales had corn sales above the hig

Tidbits South Korea bought 201,000 mts of corn: 136,000 mts is expected from unspecified sources and 65,000 mts from South America. Japan bought 77,220 mts of milling wheat from a tender that we mentioned 2 days ago: 55,420 mts from the U.S. and 21,800 mts from Australia. China's Sinograin has bought nearly 500,000 mts of U.S. soybeans this week for shipment in March and April, paying more for U.S. supplies for state reserves rather than buying cheaper Brazilian beans, two U.

Tidbits The U.S. Producer Price Index (PPI) was reported yesterday morning. It is the measure of inflation at the wholesale level. It was slightly higher than expected at 0.4% for the month of November. Unemployment claims were 21,000 higher than expected at 242,000. The market continues to expect an interest rate cut Wednesday even though the inflation numbers do not justify it. The market has priced in a 98% chance of a 25 basis points cut next week to 4.25-4.50% on the Fed

Highlights OPEC+ on Thursday has postponed the revival of its oil production by three months, now set to begin in April 2025 instead of January 2025, marking the third such delay amid struggling crude prices and a potential surplus. The planned initial increase of 180,000 barrels per day will now be part of a slower unwinding of cuts expected to conclude in September 2026. Despite this delay, the UAE is permitted to gradually increase its production by 300,000 barrels per day

Tidbits The American economy  expanded at a healthy 2.8% annual pace in the third quarter of 2024 on strong consumer spending and a surge in exports, the government said Wednesday, leaving unchanged its initial estimate of GDP growth in the third quarter, which was 0.2% less growth than in the second quarter.   U.S. GDP expansion has topped 2% for 8 of the last 9 quarters. The Commerce Department will issue its final third quarter 2024 GDP report on Dec. 19.   Consumer spendi

Highlights December CBOT options expire today.   As we wrote earlier, President Biden authorized Ukraine to strike deep into Russian territory with long-range missiles, after that Ukraine launched two missile strikes on Russian regions. Experts say those missiles have to be operated by NATO specialists. Yesterday, Russia launched a strike with the “Oreshnik” Hypersonic Intercontinental Ballistic Missile  at a military plant in Ukraine. It is said hypersonic missiles have a sp

Highlights The National Oilseed Processors Association (NOPA) soybean crush was an all-time monthly high in October. NOPA members crushed 199.959 million bu., eclipsing the record of 196.406 million bu. set in March of 2024. To learn all about NOPA, go to: https://www.wrightonthemarket.com/post/about-the-nopa   "The economy is not sending any signals that we need to be in a hurry to lower rates" , said Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell on Thursday during a speech in Dallas.

At 10 AM Mountain Time today the USDA will issue its November S&D.  On Wednesday, an EPA auditor gave an agricultural commercial chemical applicator, who does business with one of our clients, a set of new regulations that went into effect Wednesday. The applicator told our client these new regulations will require some serious limitations in 2025. The limited information our client has is that the new regulations have something to do with the Endangered Species Act. If any o

Highlights Yesterday morning, the USDA announced the sale of 124,000 mts of corn to unknown.   Dr. Michael Cordonnier left his South American corn and soybean crop estimates unchanged from last month (in million mts):   Corn: Brazil 125 (USDA 127), Argentina 48 (USDA 51)  Soybeans: Brazil 165 (USDA 169), Argentina 57 (USDA 51)   Egypt purchased 290,000 mts of wheat this week: 120,000 mts Romania 120,000 mts Ukraine 50,000 mts Bulgaria   Chinese manufacturing purchasing manage

Highlights December crude oil  made a 4-week low Tuesday after Israel's weekend retaliatory strike was very limited and raised hopes that the direct attacks between Iran and Israel were over for the time being. Iran said on Monday its oil industry was operating normally despite the weekend strike by Israel. The risk premium in oil prices was further reduced Monday when Israel said it was open to a short truce in Gaza in return for the release of a small number of hostages.  

Highlights & Export Sales November CBOT options expire today.   Weekly export sales were huge. According to Karen Braun, it was the fifth-largest corn sales for any week in at least 20 years, while sales of soybeans were the 2nd largest for any week in over a year. Also, yesterday morning, the USDA announced the sale of: 227,600 mts of old crop corn to Japan 165,000 mts of old crop corn to unknown 198,000 mts of old crop soybeans to unknown

Tidbits Ukraine's President Zelensky made demands while speaking before the EU's European Council in Brussels. Zelensky said he wants to join NATO and, if Ukraine is not accepted, then he will have to resort to nuclear weapons. Zelensky sounds like he is getting more worried about Ukraine's situation.   The Biden Administration provided $425 million in aid to Ukraine earlier this week. From what we hear from people on the ground in Western North Carolina, that FEMA operation

Highlights Yesterday morning, the USDA announced the sale of: 21,000 mts of old crop soybean oil to Mexico 125,000 mts of old crop corn to unknown 292,800 mts of old crop soybeans to unknown Taiwan purchased 78,200 mts of US wheat in a tender on Thursday.   How does this Wednesday’s export sale of 1.995 million mts of corn match-up with the ten biggest corn sale days in US history:

Highlights The USDA will release at 11 AM Central Time today its monthly S&D. Note below every average estimate is less than the September USDA S&D. ADM’s summary: On the economy front, we got mixed news yesterday morning. Inflation was higher than expected (a reason for higher interest rates) and unemployment claims were higher than expected (for lower interest rates).   The Labor Department reported the Consumer Price Index (CPI, inflation at the retail level) rose 2.4% for

Highlights We continue to hear of yields that are terrible and yields that are the best ever from across the Corn Belt. We really do not have any confidence in saying the USDA should raise or lower national average yields on next Friday’s S&D. We do sense bean yields are more likely to see a yield reduction or a smaller increase than corn.       Rain in the forecast for Brazil and no rain in the forecast for Corn Belt pressured corn and beans yesterday. Wheat prices were thum