I understand that Roger reports on the commitment of traders report every week, but something on the corn report jumped out at me this week and I wanted to share it. There are several different formats of this report published every week.
The disaggregated report separates the large traders into 2 categories: managed money and other reportables or large trading funds. Corn sold off every during this reporting period.
As expected, the managed money category added a net 12,000 more short contracts. What caught my eye however, was that the large proprietary trading funds positions added 7192 long positions and covered 14,785 short positions. This means that their overall already net long position added +22,000 net long.
This is a rare occurrence for corn to sell off about 60 cents while the funds are adding any net long, let alone +22,000 positions. This is something for us to consider.
Perhaps the corn market is more bullish than meets the eye from the chart. I would bet that the large trading firms have access to superior technology that gives them a more accurate estimate of the crop conditions quantitatively, than the USDA reports! Let's keep our eye on it. Here is the commitment of traders report if you want to see all the details. https://www.cftc.gov/dea/futures/ag_sf.htm
I was also looking at the July rainfall maps and comparing it to July 2022, last year. As we all know, that period is the corn crops most important time for development.
These maps are a percentage of normal rainfall for the month of July. Unfortunately, in order to see the colors well, you can't make out the state lines, but I am trusting you know where the cornbelt is, relative to the US map.
The tan color is above 50% of normal and the orange is below 50% - red is below 25%. Here is last year first, followed by this year. To my eyes, the difference is palpable. I agree that there's no way possible that corn yield will match last year. See what you think.
The total area of orange is greater this year and there were no red blotches last year.
Here is the NOAA rain website for more detail. https://water.weather.gov/precip/
Thursday's and Friday's low in December corn was identical at 493. My opinion from a timing perspective is if corn was going to test the 480 lows, it would've done it last week.
Here is Friday's daily December corn chart showing that Friday was the only up day.
September Wheat similarly marked a green bar on Friday. Wheat was also unable to trade lower on Friday, marking a 1 cent higher low than Thursday. Also, wheat was unable to test the A low of 622 last week.
You will see this on the chart. These details could mean that the down leg has run it's course in corn and wheat. I don't know this for sure, but it is a heads up. Here is the September Wheat chart.
September Soybeans marked higher highs both on Thursday and Friday, creating a wedge or triangle that price should spring up from next week. I expect some rallying next week, but the monthly USDA report is Friday, so it may not amount to much before then.
Check out the daily September bean chart showing that running correction and small triangle.
The weekly soybean chart has a great deal of supply/demand UP pressure on it. This type of setup usually indicates that there is an urgency for prices to mark up higher.
The Eurocurrency had a nice up day on Friday and, before that, has been unable to test the uptrend line below. This is a positive development. Therefore, the US Dollar was down 0.514 on Friday. Check out the updated September Eurocurrency chart.
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