Highlights
The weather forecast in South America was better for crops in some areas and worse in others, but the bottom line is the traders wanted to reduce their long positions with the USDA reports coming on Thursday that will impact old crop prices with the inventory report and new crop prices with the acreage report. We do not do any grain marketing before the report. We can see that the acres may be a bit bearish corn and inventory may be friendly for corn and beans. In any case, by Monday, weather in North and South America will dominate the trade.
Every time something unusual happens, we ask ourselves, “Is this event going to affect our clients?” And so it is with the container ship that was exiting the Port of Baltimore when it hit a bridge pylon and caused the collapse of Baltimore's Francis Scott Key Bridge.
The US government has said this was not a terror attack, but theories abound from cyberattack to economic attack. Baltimore is the 14th largest US port and # 1 for vehicle imports and exports for the last 15 years. Back in the 1960’s and before, it was the # 1 grain export port and Toledo, Ohio was # 2 grain exporter.
The bridge collapse has cut off all port traffic that could snarl up the whole US east coast as freight is rerouted. Besides being the biggest port for vehicle imports, it is home to a Domino Sugar refinery which has about six to eight weeks’ supply of raw sugar.