BASIC & RECENT MARKET INFO

The numbers were: Friendly Corn Neutral Soybeans Neutral Wheat   16 Minutes After the Report: Dec corn +6 Nov beans -2 Dec CBOT wheat +8...

Highlights After cutting interest rates 10 basis points Monday, yesterday China’s Central Bank presented the largest stimulus package since the pandemic to bolster economic growth in the country, lowering borrowing costs, cutting mortgage interest rates, smaller bank reserves, free money for certain industries and groups of people, etc. Their stocks and bonds ripped to their highest trade in more than two years, which contributed greatly to higher CBOT commodities yesterday m

Carryover and S&D The three most important factors in governing the future price direction of a given commodity are carryover, carryover, carryover. What is the current carryover, aka ending stocks?  Is it more than enough to last until the next crop is harvested? If not, the price will rise to make sure the world does not run out of that commodity. That is the job of the market; to make sure we never run out of a commodity. Higher prices require users to reduce consumption b

The numbers were: Neutral Corn Neutral Soybeans Negative Wheat   23 Minutes After the Report: Dec corn -4 Nov beans +3 Sept CBOT wheat -1...

Highlights USDA's August S&D report summary: Corn harvested acres down 700,000 to 82.7 million. Corn yield up 2.1 bushels per acre to 183.1. Corn production up 47 million bu to 15.147 billion bushels; corn usage up 70 million bushels. Bean harvested acres up by just over 1 million acres (was the USDA Actual Planted Acres in June wrong?). Where did those acres come from? The USDA reported “prevented plantings” of 2.670 million acres of corn, 775,000 acres of soybeans, and 389,

The numbers were: Friendly+ Corn Bearish Soybeans Friendly Wheat 37 Minutes After the Report: Dec corn +4 Nov beans -20 Sept CBOT wheat...

Tidbits Market advisor, Kevin Duling of Maupin, Oregon is a wheat guy and tracks S&D numbers. He is the best wheat guy we know. If you have a lot of financial risk due to unsold wheat, we encourage you to give Kevin a call.    Here are his post USDA report wheat comments:    For (world) wheat, USDA went back to the old playbook of increasing stocks from last year to pad the books for this year. Any time the balance sheet starts looking too tight, USDA adds in bushels from a p

Highlights The USDA lowered old corn carryout 120 million bushels below the lowest estimate by increasing feed use and exports both by 75 million bushels each. Old crop corn imports were increased by 5 million so the carryout was lowered by 145 million to 1,877 million bushels.   New crop corn feed demand was also increased by 75 million bushels and exports were increased 25 million. The new crop production increase of 240 million bushels from additional corn acres was more t

The numbers were: Bullish Corn Friendly Soybeans Bearish Wheat 28 Minutes After the Report: Dec corn +5 Nov beans +4 Sept CBOT wheat -12...

Analysis of Friday’s Carnage Benson Quinn Commodities said the biggest surprise on Friday was USDA apparently delaying release with no warning. If the report was delayed and no one knew the numbers, why was corn down 19¢ and beans up 7¢ when the report was released?   As we reported yesterday, the USDA said there were 3.36 million acres of corn and 12.767 million acres of beans left to be planted when USDA completed their survey. What we did not see was a note in the fine pri

Highlights The USDA reports were to be released at 11 AM Central Time yesterday. That was when corn started going down and beans began moving higher. Traffic on the USDA website at report release time is so heavy, us peons must wait a few minutes to access the report. Yesterday, we waited 10 to 12 minutes as corn continued to fall. That is when the USDA issued a statement on its website that technical difficulties led to a delay in the report being released.   What did that m

These are Benson-Quinn's USDA Numbers. We have no reason to think they are not actual USDA numbers. If they are the actual numbers, some...

Highlights Yesterday morning, the consumer price index for May was unchanged from April and up 3.3% for the past 12 months. Core CPI was up 0.2% in May (+0.1% expected), which was lowest since April 2021. April’s core CPI was +0.3%.   The Federal Reserve announced yesterday afternoon it will hold interest rates steady and pushed out the start of rate cuts to as late as December, projecting only one 25 basis points (one-fourth percent) rate reduction for the year.   China’s ec

The numbers were: Friendly Corn Neutral Soybeans Negative Wheat One Hour after the report: July corn +2 July beans +1 July CBOT wheat -10...

Highlights If you have soft red winter wheat to deliver this summer, you need to set the basis about three weeks before harvest starts in your area. Historically, that is when the basis is as firm as it will get.     Soft red winter July wheat ended Friday at a one month low of $6.27½. All SRW wheat trading volume was a one month high of 280,935 contracts, with July seeing a heavy 131,164 contracts traded. Heavy trading volume on a down day for prices is an indication of stro

Highlights USDA changes for South America: Argentina’s bean crop unchanged at 50 million mts. Brazil’s bean crop was reduced by 1 million mts to 154, about 6 to 7 million higher than most estimates. Reduced Argentina’s corn crop 2 million mts to 53, which is 6 to 10 million mts above most estimates. Reduced Brazil’s corn crop by 2 million mts to 122 million mts, 9 million mts above CONAB, which will give their May S&D numbers on Monday. Increased Ukraine’s 2023 corn crop by 1

The numbers were: Friendly Corn and Wheat Neutral to Negative Soybeans 27 Minutes after the report: July corn +9 July beans +5 July CBOT...

Tidbits Yesterday morning, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics reported inflation at the wholesale level in March was up 0.2%; the market was expecting the Producer Price Index (PPI) to be up 0.3%. However, there is a credibility problem.   What would you say gasoline prices did in March? Yep, the American Automobile Association (Triple A) reported the price of gasoline in March increased 6.3%. However, the gasoline component of the government’s PPI reported the "seasonally adj

The numbers were: Negative Corn Negative Beans Neutral Wheat 18 Minutes after the report: May corn -3 May beans -5 July CBOT wheat -7 July KC wheat -7 Sept Spring wheat -6 Bottom line, in the past 24 hours, respected agencies reduced South American corn production by 8.299 mil. mts (326.7 mil. bushels).   Details:   CONAB (Brazil’s USDA) released its monthly update earlier this morning. It put Brazil's safrinha corn production at 85.6 mil mts., down 16.75 mil mts from last ye

Market Comment The USDA will issue its April S&D today at 10 AM Mountain time. Given the March inventory of corn, we already know feed use this past winter was stronger than USDA expected. We already know from weekly numbers that the corn for ethanol crush and corn exports are running stronger than USDA projected for the year. But will USDA reduce the corn carryover below 2 billion bushels, as they should, based on the numbers we already know? Probably not.   The average esti