BASIC & RECENT MARKET INFO

Highlights After the settlement Wednesday, Alan Bonifas, our long-term technical consultant and our second full-service consultant who hit dead-on the lows and highs from 2019 to 2022, said his long term technical outlook shifted from a high this spring and a low into fall to either: A high in the spring and low in the late summer or fall (like 2021 and 2022) or A low in spring and high in the late summer or fall (like 2019 and 2020). Alan thought the July 22, 2022 lows o

Highlights Fertilizer prices are lower for the 9th consecutive week and all other inputs made 12 month lows in February. Hot dry weather is still on tap for India’s wheat growing region. The Fed Fund interest rate futures are pricing a peak interest rate of 5.5% in September. Fed President Bostic said Wednesday that the Fed might pause rate hikes by mid to late summer. Tidbits Very heavy rains in southeast Asia are threatening palm oil production. Palm oil is the number one

Tidbits March options expired yesterday. The option expiration day is seldom a good day for the owners of grain and oil seeds, whether in the bin or on the CBOT. Late February, over the decades, is usually the winter low for corn and beans. There was economic news released Friday morning that the market thinks justified higher interest rates by the Federal reserve, so the dollar was stronger, which is bad for exports, and wheat relies more on export demand than any commodity

The CBOT, postal service and banks will be closed Monday for Presidents’ Day. Highlights Yesterday morning Russia launched missile strikes across a wide area of Ukraine. The Producer Price Index yesterday morning was reported to be up 6.0% for the previous year. The market was looking for an increase of 5.4%; this means more tightening of the money supply. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said yesterday there is an urgent need to reduce wages and increase unemploymen

Highlights Yesterday’s weekly export sales had soybeans at their lowest or second lowest sales of the marketing year. Before you panic and sell every bean, note that the lowest weekly soybean exports of the marketing year (which began 1 September) is always a month or so after Brazil starts to harvest soybeans. In fact, the lowest sales week of the marketing year usually comes the first or second week of January because Brazil’s soybean harvest usually starts in late December

Highlights Brazil’s soybean harvest starts in January and their corn export program ends at the end of January because they must switch their limited infrastructure to export soybeans. Right on cue, yesterday’s weekly export sales of corn were 1.593 million mt, almost 400,000 mts above the high end of expectations. It was the second largest weekly corn sales of the marketing year and, perhaps more important, China bought 319,000 mt. They had been buying record large tonnage f

February CBOT options expire today. Highlights Tampa is probably the biggest port for US fertilizer coming and going. Ammonia prices were down 19% yesterday. February AA priced at $790 per mt, down from January’s $975. Natural Gas prices have declined over 50% in just the last 6 weeks, trading at the lowest price since May of 2021. It is possible that the restart of the Freeport LNG plant in Texas will cause US natural gas prices to increase as more pipeline natural gas will

Highlights The USDA’s weekly export sales had corn and wheat sales higher than the top end of the range of expectations. It is not a miracle; North America has always been the wheat supplier of last result. The January sharply increased insurance rates for ships in the Black Sea and increased export tax on Russian wheat, it was time for Canada and USA to get some wheat sold. Argentina and Ukraine are the world’s #3 and #4 corn exporters and they both have serious problems exp

Highlights The US inventories of corn, wheat and beans were all significantly less than expected. That is not only friendly for each of those commodities, but all three being significantly less than expected adds an additional element of bullishness for the group. USDA surprise #1: A 1.6 million acre cut of harvested US 2022 corn acres and a 300,000 acre cut in harvested bean acres. Surprise #2: Corn yields were increased almost a full bushel per acre while bean yields we

Highlights Big spec and index fund managers as of last Tuesday were net long 141,877 contracts of bean meal futures and options. That is the largest long position ever, up nearly 12,000 on the reporting week and funds' 6th consecutive week of buying. The prior open interest record was set May 1, 2018. What does that mean? It means the next person to buy soybean meal futures very well may be the last person to buy bean meal at such a high price for a very long time. But there

Our Wednesday mailing included this statement: It is not a coincidence that the price of wheat has rallied 50 cents as the funds liquidated some of their short (sold) positions. Will they continue to be buyers? We will have to wait and see, but we can conclude anyone shorting (selling before buying) CBOT wheat right now will provide that trader with a high probability of a major league losing position. A client asked if that statement meant he should be selling wheat. No, S

This is Jeremey Frost with some not so fearless comments from www.dailymarketminute.com for Wright on the Market. I want to say thanks to Roger for allowing me the opportunity to share some of my thoughts with his customers on the grain markets. But before I do that I want to share with you a little about me and what I do. I am a former CHS Grain buyer for 20 plus years before going out on my own. I buy and sell cash grain for Banghart Properties, we mainly buy specialty cr

Highlights The National Oilseed Processors Association (NOPA) soybean crush for November was 179.184 million bushels, well below the trade’s expectation of 181.473 mb and below the low end of the range of expectations of 180.0. Soy oil stocks were reported at 1.630 billion pounds, above the average trade estimate of 1.619 billion pounds (range 1.550-1.775). Considering the crush was less than expected and, yet, the soy oil stocks were larger than expected, soybean futures hel

Tidbits Yesterday morning, the USDA reported the largest one day bean sale since April: 118,000 mt of soybeans to China 718,000 mt of soybeans to unknown January soybean futures on the Dalian Exchange (China) settled at a five month high of US$20.01. The USDA will release its December S&D today at 11 AM Central. There will be no changes in the US production numbers. World production numbers are all subject to change and all foreign and domestic demand numbers are subject to

Highlights Soybean oil went down the daily limit and “locked” there in five contract months. “Locked” means there was no trading at limit down. Everybody wanted to sell, but no one wanted to buy and, so, no trades. There is a huge difference between “trading” at limit down and “locked” limit down. Due to soybean oil closing down the daily price change limit yesterday, the entire soybean complex will have expanded limits today. Soybean limits are $1.50, soybean oil 7 cents a p

Highlights All the crude oil traders saw or heard yesterday was more cases of covid infection in China than any time since the dark days...

Highlights Will grains and soybeans ever go up? After yesterday, that is the question millions of people want to know. If you just look at CBOT action, yes, yesterday was a very bad day as new lows for the move were made in everything except oats. When CBOT prices are in downtrend, it is because of one or more of the following: Too much supply. USDA’s wheat and corn carryovers reported Wednesday were less than the market expected and the bean carryover was increased from a 17

Highlights Yesterday morning, CBOT wheat went from about 15 lower to unchanged in about ten minutes. The reason was the latest round of Russian rocket strikes on Ukraine caused the largest nuclear power plant in Europe to be completely disconnected from the power grid. The Zaporozhnya is running on 20 backup generators which have enough diesel fuel to keep them running for 15 days. Supposedly, a catastrophe of radiation exposure will occur if those generators stop before the

Highlights A third railroad union, the Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen, has voted to reject the tentative agreement with the National Carriers’ Conference Committee. If the railroads go down with the barges down... possible Black Swan event. Will Biden let the railroad unions strike? President Truman did not and he was a Democrat also. Reuters reports that 800,000 people were placed on covid lockdown in Wuhan, China and new daily cases yesterday were in excess of 1,000 acro

Yield Report West Central Indiana: "Corn is about 200 bpa and beans about 60 averages this year as a whole. Finished beans Wednesday about half done with corn." Thanks, Brian. Highlights Yesterday morning, the USDA announced the sale of: 201,000 mt of soybeans to China 132,000 mt of soybeans to unknown The Union Pacific and other railroads have rejected the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employees Division union’s request to add paid sick time on top of the 24% raises and