BASIC & RECENT MARKET INFO

Highlights There continues to be major differences in the weather forecasts for the dry areas of Brazil. Midday Sunday, some forecasts had the Rondonópolis area receiving 1 to 2 inches rain the first few days of December, while others said not so. By early this morning, the rainfall for early December in the Rondonópolis had been reduced by 20 to 30% while other services continued to predict mostly dry.   Unidentified individuals seized the tanker, Central Park,  carrying a f

Soybeans Q&A From a client in Central Missouri: "Good afternoon, Roger,  What are your thoughts on why the bean market sold off this past week? Should a guy be concerned moving forward? Corn market going to stay in a sideways trend the next month?  Thanks"   Thanksgiving week market action is so distorted it is difficult to get a good handle on the technical and fundamental situation. As far as Friday’s market action goes, the probability of rain was increased for the dry are

Highlights OPEC has postponed their Sunday meeting to consider production cuts. That news caused crude oil to sell-off over $3 yesterday before recovering nicely by the close, but weaker over night.   Edurado Vanin, an export grain and soybean manager in Brazil reported yesterday China continues to buy US soybeans. He said this week China is looking to buy 8-10 shiploads (~400,000 to 500,000 mts) of US soybeans. Yesterday, brokers in various Asian countries were asking about

Highlights Two weeks ago, 8 out of 10 farmers we talked to said they were expecting less bushels per acre than a year ago. While they would not put a number on the beans, most were saying corn would be 20 to 30 bushels less. That translates to about 10 bushels less per acre. Half of the 1 in 10 said yields would be the same and the same number said better than 2022. Now, 6 out of 10 say corn is not as good as 2022 and the others are split between the same and better. Yield

Highlights OPEC members, Nigeria and Iran, have been cheating on their crude oil quota the past two months while other OPEC members did maintain reduced production. OPEC produced more crude in August than they did in July, but OPEC leaders (aka Saudi Arabia) swept that under the rug to keep prices on an upward trajectory. However, after the same two “villians” over produced again in September, the Saudis “blew the whistle” yesterday and crude oil prices slumped $2 and settled

Tidbits The NOPA August soybean crush was 161.453, 6.35 million bushels less than the market expected. That was an 11-month low and down 6.8% from July and down 2.5% from August of last year, which is not so bad. The soybean oil stocks in the NOPA report were at 1.25 billion pounds vs. 1.483 billion expected, down 18.2% from July and down 20.1% from a year ago. Get this: the soy oil supplies are at the lowest level since October 2017… that was 6 years ago, Folks. To learn a

Highlights July CBOT options expire today. The day before and the day options expire are usually down days for CBOT futures. President Biden at a west coast fundraiser called China’s President Xi a "dictator" Wednesday evening. Xi was not pleased one bit and he let the US Ambassador know that Biden’s comment was "political provocation." In hindsight, that added pressure to the soybeans yesterday on top of the biodiesel blending disappointment. Secretary of Treasury Janet Yel

Highlights If the front three contract months of any commodity futures settles limit up or limit down, the next day’s daily trading limit is expanded. Yesterday, soybean oil was limit-down in more than three months. That means the bean complex will have expanded limits today: Soybeans: $1.60 a bushel Bean meal: $45 a ton Bean oil: 60¢ a pound Yesterday, the EPA issued its Renewable Fuel Standards (RFS) mandate for 2023 through 2025 compliance years. The ethanol blending targe

Highlights The Tech Guy did a great job updating the weather situation with his mailing to his blog followers last evening. If you missed it, read it at: https://www.wrightonthemarket.com/post/tech-guy-weekend-comments-6-18-23 The Bank of China has been on an easy money policy for months to stimulate the economy. Tomorrow morning their time (10 PM Eastern Time today), the interest rate is expected to be reduced by 10 basis points (one tenth of one percent). The easier the mo

Highlights Suddenly yesterday morning, the market became very concerned about a lack of rain on Canada’s canola crop and Europe’s rapeseed crop. That supposedly was the reason beans traded 42¢ higher yesterday midday. Soyoil traded sharply higher Tuesday and closed above its 100-day moving average. Yesterday morning, the consumer price index for May was reported to be up 0.1% and up 4% from a year ago, the lowest annual gain in about two years. This morning at 7:30 Central,

Tidbits Caixin Media is China's most influential financial media group. The Caixin newsroom is recognized as an unrivaled producer of independent, investigative journalism in China, and an indispensable source of information for investors, business leaders, policy-makers, and academics. Supposedly, the Chinese government has no input into their conclusions and predictions. Caixin Global is Caixin’s English language outlet and it will report the results of its Purchasing Man

Highlights Those traders who are short anything related to grains and oilseeds were buyers yesterday as well they should have been given the drought monitor and the 8 to 14 day forecast for the Corn Belt and Canada. US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen announced she expects to be able to make payments on US debt up until June 5, four days longer than her earlier estimate. While that is good news, it also allows negotiators more time to make demands. Yesterday, negotiators nar

Highlights Talks between top-ranking Republicans and Democrats continue about the debt ceiling. Hawkish (aggressive, forceful) comments yesterday from Federal Reserve Governors Bullard and Kashkari raised expectations for a longer period of high interest rates or even higher rates. The US dollar, with the renewed prospect of higher interest rates, broke out to the top side of its range. Private Brazil Crop Analyst, Agroconsult, raised their projection for the second crop Br

Repeating 2013? Market outlook 2012 was the sixth Corn Belt wide drought since 1900. The other five were in 1934, 1936, 1980, 1983, and 1988. Corn and bean futures made their all-time high trade in 2012. December 2012 corn traded to $8.49 on August 10th and then December 2013 corn traded to $4.10 in October 2013. https://www.barchart.com/futures/quotes/Zcz13/interactive-chart November 2012 beans traded to $17.89 on September 4th. By the fall of 2013, November 2013 beans wer

About pricing under breakeven From Kyle (and much the same from many folks yesterday midday): "Do I contract new crop at a price under my breakeven? I know... I hate to even ask it. I recently talked with a local grain buyer who is now retired and out of the game, so he has no skin in it anymore. He said he would sell all old crop and contract 50% new crop at today’s price. I said "well that's under my breakeven..." His reasoning was Brazil has a stellar crop (every 1 bu los

Highlights Inspections of ships carrying grain from Ukraine resumed after two days of hassle. Russia's Ag Ministry sees Russian 2023 wheat production at 78 million mt, ~9 million mt less than SovEcon (Andrey Sizov) projected yesterday. China will auction-off another 1.5 million bushels of its state reserves of imported wheat on April 26 to keep a lid on domestic prices. China always replenishes its government reserves with imports. Some showers were added to the forecast f

Tidbits JPMorgan posted a $12.5 billion first quarter profit, 52% above a year ago, beating expectations by a wide margin. Managing a banking business is like managing every enterprise. While some banks were failing in the first quarter, JP Morgan was making money hand-over-fist. While rising interest rates destroyed some banks and businesses, others made out like bandits. First Republic, Silicon Valley and Charles Schwab did not hedge their inventory; do you think JP Morga

Highlights Russia announced yesterday it will reduce its oil exports from its western ports by up to 25% in March, exceeding its...

Highlights There is no consensus as to how many of Argentina's acres were damaged or how many mts were lost. We will get hundreds of reports and estimates in the coming week. The bigger issue is drought in Argentina. Today President Putin will reveal to Russia’s elite his plans of the “military operation" in Ukraine. If he is not pulling out of the wear, his speech will be supportive to prices of everything. Tidbits CBOT May beans gapped higher on the opening last evening, up

Highlights The Nord Stream Pipeline is a natural gas pipeline from Russia to Germany running through the Baltic Sea, financed by Russia’s Gazprom and several European energy companies. A Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, Seymour Hersh, reported last Wednesday that the Biden Administration decided to damage the pipeline to prevent Russia from boosting its income while reducing the dependence of Western Europe on inexpensive Russian gas. Now, four days later, it appears that