BASIC & RECENT MARKET INFO

Highlights Yesterday morning, the USDA announced the sale of 510,000 mts of new crop soybeans and 150,000 mts of new crop soybean cake and meal to the unknown. The Northern Plains over the next 2-3 weeks are going from too wet and too cool to maybe too hot and too dry. NOAA weather outlook for August has higher than normal temperature and normal precipitation expected, it is about the same idea for Aug-Sept-Oct period:

Highlights Eric Snodgrass: "We use that term derecho when we’re talking about a storm system that produces damaging winds over at least a 400-mile swath. That’s certainly what we got out of this as it went through it produced over 850 reports of severe wind damage, including some tornadoes, along with those really strong winds."   Snodgrass says the system, which hit some areas recently impacted by the remnants of Hurricane Beryl, also caused widespread flooding issues.    "I

Highlights In this business, when something unusual happens, such as yesterday’s assassination attempt on Donald Trump, one must consider if that unusual event will affect grain prices.   There are those that think the assassination attempt guarantees Trump will win the election. We are not so sure about that. After all, except for seven states, we already know which states’ electoral votes will go to Democrats and which ones will go to Trump. All the Democrats have to do to

Highlights The first sentence of yesterday’s report was: "Sunday’s weather forecast indicates remnants of Hurricane Beryl will probably bring some rain to the Eastern Corn Belt over the next 7 days, where rain is really needed." We should have added,  "That means corn and beans will be smartly lower today."   We certainly did not expect the magnitude of the losses we saw, but a test of the contract lows on December corn at $4.12 would not have surprised us. Instead, December

Highlights Sunday’s weather forecast indicates remnants of Hurricane Beryl will probably bring some rain to the Eastern Corn Belt over the next 7 days, where rain is really needed.   Eduardo Vanin reported Sunday that Brazil’s soybean farmers have contracted more than double the amount of new crop beans than they did last year at this time. However, the new crop soybean basis is firming instead of weakening. Like Eduardo said, that makes no sense, especially with the assumpti

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

The CBOT will start trading at 8:30 AM Central Time Friday.  Highlights Soybean oil leaped higher yesterday, with August up 1.6¢ per pound. Over the past 6 trading days, bean oil has added 76¢ of value to a bushel of soybeans (6.6¢ gain in value per pound of oil times 11.5 pounds of oil per bushel of soybeans). Tomorrow, we will get vegetable oil analyst Khawaja Haroon’s insights on the vegetable oil market.   The S&P 500 and NASDAQ were sharply higher and made new all-time h

Highlights The flooding on the Mississippi is worse than initially thought. It now looks like the entire Mid-Mississippi north of mile 270 could be closed through the first half of July. Force majeure  is in effect. Beans and corn basis near the river north of mile 270 will probably weaken and basis further away from the river can be expected to firm.   Force majeure is a provision in a contract that frees both parties from obligation if an extraordinary event directly preven

Highlights At 11 AM Central Time today, the USDA will release its Actual Planted Acres, Quarterly Grain Inventory as of June 1st, and US Wheat Production.   Market expectations for today’s reports are that acres and stocks will be up. Corn acreage average expectation is at 90.3 million vs. 90 in March; bean acres are estimated at 86.75 million vs. 86.5 in March; spring wheat acres are estimated at 11.34 million, up slightly from March intentions of 11.335 million.   Markets w

Highlights Weather in the crop areas of North America remains in the world's headline for grains and oilseeds followed by South American weather, Asian weather, then Eastern European weather, and lastly Western European weather. Percentage wise, we estimate 25 to 35% of the  crop areas of the world are experiencing production losses due to weather. The world's weather outlook this morning is for more of the same for the coming week.   If corn and bean futures are not higher t

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

Highlights The BN and UP railroads are holding-up rail traffic at the US/Mexico border, which may have stopped all corn by rail to Mexico to halt illegal entry to the USA on freight trains. The railroads halted rail service to Mexico back in December due to illegal immigration. Who would have thought Biden’s policies on illegal entry to the USA would disrupt corn exports?   There are 163 million bushels of corn sold to Mexico yet to be shipped this marketing year. That is an

Highlights July CBOT options expire today. A week from today is the Actual Planted Acres, Wheat Production, and Quarterly Grain Inventory as of June 1st. These numbers make the last business day in June the most important report day of the year.  Friday is not only option expiration in the grains but also for stock & index options, index & single stock futures. This could be the largest ever with over $5.1 trillion in option exposure expiring and over $870 billion of that in

Announcements The National Oilseed Processors Association (NOPA) crush for May will be released around noon today. It is expected to be a record large soybean crush number for the month of May.   No CBOT trading from the close on Tuesday afternoon until Wednesday evening 7 PM Central. It is a Joe Biden created Federal holiday called Juneteenth, the day in 1965 when the news reached Texas the War Between the States was over.   July CBOT options expire at the close of CBOT trad

Q&A Question from from Travis: As we move forward with this current crop having very good crop ratings… when would you suggest we get rid of old crop?   It seems to me nothing moves the market higher, but we can always go lower. I guess I do not understand the big swings in markets from day to day. It makes no sense to me they can find a way to go lower, but struggle immensely to sustain higher prices??   Is there going to be any sort of weather scare to move it? I fear the m

Tidbits The first heat wave of the year continued the third day in the U.S. Southwest on Saturday after setting record highs well above 110 degrees Fahrenheit in California to Arizona.   About half of Arizona and Nevada were under an excessive heat alert. Las Vegas has never been hotter this early in the year. After setting a new record of 111 F (43.8 C) on Thursday, Las Vegas quickly broke another record early Friday afternoon as it hit 110 F (48.3 C) and surpassed the recor

Highlights The weekly ethanol report numbers were supportive for corn prices, but the market ignored it. Ethanol production was the second highest ever for this reporting week and the ethanol inventory was down 155,000 barrels from last week.   S&P Global left their Brazilian corn production unchanged at 123 mil. mts (USDA 122) and their soybean number also unchanged at 152 mil. mts (USDA 154).   SovEcon (Andrey Sizov) cut his Russian wheat crop estimate from 82.1 mil. mts ju

Highlights Rain moved across ND and SD yesterday and delivered heavy rain and storms to already waterlogged Minnesota, where flooding is being reported along major rivers. The Mississippi River in St Paul is expected to reach minor flood stage in the next couple days.   The heat wave in drought-stricken Mexico will move north in a few days to bring dangerously high temperatures from Arizona to the Pacific Northwest this week. Temperatures are expected to reach triple digits (

Acid Rains Twenty or so years ago, acid rain, according to the world’s governments and environmentalists, was going to kill us all. Acid rain was acidic because sulfur dioxide (SO2) was washed out of the atmosphere by the rain. The result was ULSD and ocean ship fuel regulations were introduced in 2020, which sharply reduced sulfur dioxide pollution. Ocean freighters burn a huge amount of fossil fuels 247.     Now, scientists say reduced levels of SO2 may have made the ocean

Highlights Rice is the top competitor with wheat in the world marketplace and in the domestic markets of Asia. India and China are the world’s leading producers of rice and wheat. For three years, El Niño has battered Indian farmlands, causing prolonged droughts and significant decline in crop yields, including wheat and especially rice, a Kakinada-based rice exporter said. So, the return of La Niña is welcomed by farmers and grain merchants.   La Niña is expected to make a s