I hope things are going well for you and yours. We are still sitting, waiting on some beans to harvest. Most of the leaves have dropped from a couple-hundred acres of our beans close to home…these are May-planted. They’ll be ready to go sometime this week. We should be able to get into them given the weather looks like it will cooperate. We don’t have much of a chance for rain all week and temperatures are forecasted in the 80s. This is good corn-drying weather as well! I’m feeling fortunate for that given how late we planted most of our corn. The corn locally that’s been harvested is running in the mid-20s and it was planted before ours. Most early yields sound a touch light, but maybe that’s because we’ve been a bit spoiled the last few years. Time will tell…and please keep me posted. mbennett@AgMarket.net
The corn and bean markets both traded mostly in the green to start the week with beans seeing some red on the overnight. With rhetoric around the US/Chinese talks improving from then end of last week, traders seemed a bit more upbeat than on Friday when we went home with markets in the red. Additionally, weather in South America hasn’t been stellar by any means with most of the soybean planting in Brazil getting done on irrigated land as most of the non-irrigated was too dry for seeding. I will continue to talk about it, but I don’t want anyone going to sleep on the quarterly stocks report, which is issued a week from yesterday. It could provide some needed good vibes. Outside markets were somewhat quiet with the Dollar not doing much and crude a bit higher. November crude settled up 40 cents at $58.49. This was 90 cents off the high and $1.12 off the low.
Corn
On Sunday night, the corn market started slightly higher and maintained that tone through the session and day session as well. December corn ended the day up 2 ½ cents at $3.73 ¼. This was a penny and a quarter off the high and 2 ¼ cents off the low. Weekly export inspections were down on the week by almost 200k metric tons from a week ago with 234k mt of exports posted. The good to excellent ratings on corn jumped two points this week…moving to 57%. Only 29% of the crop is mature, compared with 69% last year and 57% as a five-year average. Only 7% has been harvested which compares to 11% on average. The corn market appears to have put in lows for the time being…and some are looking at a head and shoulders low in the markets as proof. To add to that line of thinking, I’m of the opinion that the crop is likely to get smaller…this should give plenty of support as we move into harvest when we typically see a fair amount of pressure on the market. I’m going to continue to be patient and see how this market plays out with the quarterly stocks report next week and October S & D report in a couple of weeks.
Soybean
Soybeans on Sunday night were fairly quiet, showing a bit of up-side. On the close, November beans were up 9 ¾ cents at $8.92 ½. This was 6 ¾ cents off the high and 9 ¾ off the low. Weekly export inspections were up from last week…by over 250k metric tons at 923k mt. Ratings for beans were status quo on the week, staying at 54% good/excellent. There are still only 34% of the beans are dropping leaves versus 59% for a five-year average. The bean yields I am hearing were obviously some of the earlier-planted beans…and with yields not being too stout, I have a hard time believing we’ll be able to achieve the USDA’s projected yield of 47.9 bu/ac. Given how late most of the beans went in the ground in the US this year, I struggle to see beans yields getting above 45, but maybe I’m crazy? Regardless, I would like to see how the next week or two play out and see more yields before selling more beans. I have to think we’ll see some better pricing opportunities.
