BASIC & RECENT MARKET INFO

Tidbits President Donald Trump is committed to providing Americans a $2,000 check using money that has come into government coffers from Trump's tariffs. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters that Trump's staff is exploring how to go about making the plan a reality. The U.S. House of Representatives is expected to vote today to end the government shutdown. OPEC  revised its crude oil demand projections for 2026 from higher to about unchanged to show a “b

Tidbits Corn: There were multiple reports that farmer sales of corn increased yesterday. December corn has tested the 200 day moving average 2 of the last 5 days. That moving average line is at $4.36½ today. Dec corn has been below the 200 day moving average since 6 June. So it is major technical resistance! We do expect corn and beans to weaken in the coming days because Friday next week is the first S&D from USDA in two months. Shutdown: Reportedly 8 Democrat senators have

Tidbits After the markets close  today, they will not open until Thursday evening in observance of the Juneteenth holiday. This is the single most important week of the year for corn marketing decisions . The seasonal trend turns lower on Sunday. Corn futures price usually makes its low for the year between late July and mid-September. Fundamentally, corn should be well over $5. Is a 15.8 billion corn crop already priced-in? Please read today’s Weekly Summary and Recommendati

Tidbits USDA April crush numbers  for soybeans, canola, and corn will be issued 2 PM Central today.   Over the weekend, India  reduced the tariff  on all vegetable oils by 10%. Domestic veg oil supplies are priced higher than any imported oil, according to Tushar Agarwal, market analyst for edible oils.   Yesterday, Ukraine  launched a massive drone strike on Russia  sending drones 2,670 miles (4300 kms) past the battle line, deeper into Russia than ever before. Drone hit mul

Highlights At 11 AM Central Time, the USDA will release its March S&D. It will be neutral for the market at the worst. Despite all the tariff rhetoric yesterday, the big news was the corn weekly export inspections. CHS summed it up this way:  “ Corn inspections were outstanding with the total setting a marketing year high. Inspections have been above one million tons for nine consecutive weeks. This is also the ninth week in a row where corn inspections have been above both l

Markets will be closed on Thanksgiving, November 28, reopen on Friday, at 8:30 am CDT, and close early at 12:05 pm CDT. The Commodity Exchange Act states all U.S. futures exchanges cannot be closed more than three consecutive days. Highlights Israel and Hezbollah  have agreed to a permanent cease-fire beginning today.     Trump's statement that he will slap a 10% tariff on everything imported from China is supporting soybean oil because the tariff will increase the cost of im

Highlights December basis contracts and long futures positions need to be liquidated or rolled by the close of business on Wednesday, 27 November. Given that December options expire this Friday and December delivery assignments will be issued on the evening of 27th, we recommend you roll basis contracts today or tomorrow to avoid the usual weakness associated with options expiration and first notice day. There are probably a lot of December corn basis contracts. When December

Highlights The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) weekly report highlights: U.S. ethanol production was up; market expected it to be down U.S. ethanol stocks were way down; market expected moderate decline to up a little U.S. gasoline demand was 6.4% stronger than the four-week average   Karen Braun shared a summary: USA exported a record volume of ethanol over the last year (Sep 2023-Aug 2024), some 30% above the recent five-year average. USA's 2024 imports of anim

Tidbits Stock markets around the world kick-off today with the global macro and market landscape very different from how it looked on Friday morning thanks to a set of U.S. employment figures that not even the most bullish of forecasters expected.   The immediate shift in U.S. interest rate futures markets indicate a 50-basis point rate (one-half percent) cut next month is now completely off the table. The markets signal a quarter-point cut at each of the next two Federal Ope

Highlights Crude oil was supported yesterday by Saudi Arabia's decision to recommend OPEC+ postpone production increase in October. However, the worldwide doom and gloom crowd continues to bad-mouth crude oil demand.   China requested the US immediately lift the tariffs on Chinese goods. Reuters News reports President Biden is expected to decide in the coming days about increasing tariffs on Chinese products.    French wheat growers’ group predicts their soft wheat production

CBOT will reopen Monday evening at normal time. Tidbits Crude oil prices were more than $2 lower yesterday due to economic concerns in China and the news OPEC+ is considering increasing production in October. The Energy Information Agency reporting U.S. oil demand in June was the lowest seasonally since 2020 added selling pressure. Note that Libya’s daily crude oil production is down 700,000 barrels per day from a week ago and expected to be down 1.1 million bpd next week.  

Why the Ukraine and Russia Conflict Is Important When the shooting stops between Russia and Ukraine, wheat prices will drop substantially because both countries are major wheat exporters. Corn will also decline because Ukraine is the world’s No.4 corn exporter. Lower wheat and corn will drag beans lower as lower wheat and corn prices mean more bean acres.   We talk about corruption in Ukraine because that was a major reason there was a hold-up on the recent approval of more a

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

Highlights Yesterday’s mid-day GFS model run shifted towards the drier EU model with reduced probability of rain for Iowa, Illinois, Missouri and Minnesota. The forecast will change four more times before Sunday evening. The USDA announced yesterday morning the sale of 197,000 metric tons of old crop soybeans to an unknown buyer. Why was bean oil so strong yesterday? China raised their vegetable oil import projections. That shot Malaysian palm oil futures up 3% as traders

Highlights The Federal Reserve increased its base interest rate 25 basis points (one-fourth of 1%) yesterday as expected. The market acted like it was expecting a larger increase as the dollar index went sharply lower after the news and commodity prices recovered. Brazil's soybean January exports were 850,000 mts, down 65% from a year ago. Rain every day is a problem at harvest time. The U.S. ag attaché in Argentina slashed its estimate of the country’s soybean crop to 36

Highlights Venezuela has suspended this weekend shipments of crude oil to Europe after the US State Department allowed Venezuela's oil companies to resume exports to the US under an oil-for-debt deal. The deal has been confirmed by three sources. Citgo and Chevron will receive the heavy crude at their US Gulf costal refineries. Just the possibility of getting heavy crude to US refineries should cause diesel fuel prices decline a bit.

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Highlights One year ago yesterday, 85% of North Dakota was in a severe drought (rated D3). This week, North Dakota is rated 4% very...

Highlights Bird flu is sweeping across the U.S. will soon be the country’s worst bird flu outbreak. More than 37 million chickens and...