BASIC & RECENT MARKET INFO

Tidbits U.S. crude oil stocks including the SPR rose by 800,000 barrels in the week ended Nov. 28, following a 3.3 million-barrel build the prior week. It was up 0.1% from the prior week and 2.9% year over year, and remained about 3% below the five-year seasonal average. Imports from Mexico dropped by 431,000 bpd to a weekly record low of 131,000 bpd in the week. Venezuela’s oil exports averaged about 921,000 bpd in November, the year’s third-highest monthly level. Overall ex

Tidbits Shutdown: President Trump signed the funding bill to reopen the government. Federal employees should already be back at work. S&D: At 11 AM Central Time today, the USDA will release a World Agricultural Supply & Demand Estimates (WASDE) for the first time since 12 September. USDA will also issue all the daily exports sales in excess of 100,000 mts of grains that should have been reported but were not reported because of the shut-down. The daily sales reports may be mo

Tidbits We have added pricing comments for soybeans & fuel to the Weekly Summary & Recommendations, make sure to take a look. U.S.-China: President Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping will meet Thursday in Asia. That means they will talk while Americans are sleeping. The Wall Street Journal reports the U.S. and China have agreed to reduce port fees on vessels over 80,000 mts, which was a major point of contention. Most grain is shipped in Panamax vessels which gross 55,000

Tidbits Trump and Putin  have a phone call scheduled for today. Moscow is 8 hours ahead of Central Time.   On 10 November 2023, Moody’s changed its outlook on the U.S. credit rating  from “stable” to “negative,” signaling a potential future downgrade. Last week, Moody's downgraded the US credit rating for the first time in history, citing the increase of U.S. government debt; rating downgraded from AAA to AA1 with negative outlook.   Palm oil  is the world’s leading vegetable

Highlights Putin and Trump talked for more than 2 hours yesterday. Putin told Trump that a complete cessation of military aid to Kyiv is the key condition for resolving the conflict in Ukraine, according to TASS, the Russian news service. Putin also noted the serious risks associated with the non-agreement of Kiev, which has already repeatedly sabotaged and violated the agreements reached.   Putin has agreed to an initial "energy and infrastructure" ceasefire, to be followed

Highlights A 10% tariff  on Chinese imports into the U.S. went into effect yesterday. China said it will retaliate with a 15% tariff on U.S. coal, liquefied natural gas, a 10% tariff on crude oil, agriculture machinery, and pickup trucks. The volume of U.S. agricultural machinery exports to China is about $1 billion per year, the main exporter is the state of Iowa, with which China has established ties. Currently, Chinese tariffs affect 2-3% of total U.S. exports.   Note that

Highlights Dr. Cordonnier left his yield and production estimates unchanged for US corn and beans.   French Ag ministry first production estimate of the year say's France's wheat production will be 15% less than a year ago due to poor weather.   Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said in remarks to Congress yesterday the U.S. is "no longer an overheated economy" as the job market has cooled and in many ways is back where it was before the health crisis.   Powell told the

Highlights August board crush margin jumped 15½¢ yesterday; that is 15½¢ more profit per bushel of beans crushed.   July corn settled ¾ of a cent above September corn yesterday after gaining 2¾¢ on the September. A week ago, there was more than 10¢ of carry from July to September. Old crop corn just went inverted.    Despite mostly good weather for corn in the Corn Belt and very disappointing weekly exports sales for corn, corn traded smartly higher yesterday. Wheat exports s

Tidbits S&P Global is projecting this year’s corn yield at 182.5 bushels (USDA 181) for a crop of 15.23 billion bushels!   Lance traveled 350 miles across Southern Minnesota Wednesday. He expected to see poor crops, but he was surprised how poor. He estimated 75% of corn and bean acres were just plain bad. Just about every field had water standing somewhere in it. Many corn fields had corn ankle high, knee high, and waist high with a lot of pale to yellow corn plants.   The r

Highlights Yesterday morning's US retail sales were reported up 3% in January vs. expectations of 2%. Good economic news is bad news for commodity prices as the dollar index goes up… you know the drill. Brazil’s soybean basis has weakened about 40 cents a bushel this week. That was the main reason beans were so weak yesterday. The crushers are getting enough beans to fill their storage space and now the export buyers will be able to get some beans. Thus, the extended bean ex

Highlights