BASIC & RECENT MARKET INFO

The CFTC did not issue its COT report Friday afternoon due to the holiday last week. The COT will be released Monday afternoon. We will issue our Weekly Basis Tuesday.  Tidbits Correction: Yesterday’s report included North Carolina was one of the states with too much rain causing crop problems. NC is having serious crop problems, but not because of too much rain. Dry and windy with hot weather is doing the crops harm in North Carolina.     Nova Mutum is a municipality in Braz

CBOT options expire next Friday. Grain and soybean complex futures tend to go down into option expiration day because there are so many more call option on the books than puts. Tidbits Producer price index (PPI) is the measure of inflation, at the wholesale level. In January, the PPI was up 0.3%, triple the expected increase of just 0.1%. This is another reason to not expect interest rates to come down anytime soon.   Beans were lower for the 14th time in 15 weeks. Corn was l

Yesterday, Roger recommended you price 2023 fertilizer. He meant fertilizer for 2024 crops. Highlights Is the weather or the war more supportive of these markets? Does it matter? Wheat certainly gets an extra boost on the war news as the war is in “The Bread Basket of the World.” Russia took another swipe on Ukraine’s port of Odessa again Wednesday and will probably continue to do so. The Viterra and Kernel facilities were both bombed. Major damage was done. That news suppo

Q&A: Safrinha Corn Roger, a few days back you mentioned corn demand was likely to improve at the current price levels. How would this time be different as opposed to mid-May when Dec Corn was in the $5 range. Also, what is the status of the late planted Brazilian Safrinha crop? Watching your daily rain days they have been dry for a while and look to be having plus 90 temps. Was the late planted crop already mature enough when this dry season came to light? I see that Brazil'

Highlights U.S. President Joe Biden and House Republican Speaker Kevin McCarthy will meet to discuss the debt ceiling today, after a "productive" phone call Sunday as the president headed home from Japan. Staff members for both sides did meet Sunday afternoon. Biden said he would be willing to cut spending with tax adjustments to reach a deal, but the latest offer from Republicans ceiling was "unacceptable." Day time high temperatures in many areas of Asia continue to be e

Highlights Wheat harvest in Central Kansas started yesterday. They must have had some pretty dry weather… This is when wheat harvest usually starts in Texas. April jobs data on Friday was bullish and sent stocks soaring and bonds falling (higher interest rates). Interest rate hikes may not be pausing after all with the US adding jobs for the 13th consecutive month. The government reported the US added 253,000 jobs in April. The market expected 180,000. Where is that recessio

Tidbits All markets rotated 180° yesterday from expectations of a stronger dollar and higher interest rates to a return to an easy money policy. The pivot of market expectations in such a few days has never happened before. It is truly a historic event. Your great-grandchildren will be reading about the events of this past weekend when they are working on their MBA or Ph.D. in macroeconomics. On Thursday, the market had priced-in an 81% probability the Fed would raise intere

Highlights If you grow a feed grain, this is very important: For all practical purposes, all the corn that Brazil exports is its second crop of corn, aka safrinha. It is planted after the soybean harvest in January and February. The number one factor to determine how much safrinha corn will yield is how mature it is when the dry season starts in May. Persistent rains since early December where 85% of Brazil’s soybeans are grown has produced a bean crop about 14 million mts

Highlights We cannot find any numbers for the March NOPA Soybean crush numbers. They are scheduled to be released on the 15th of every...