Good Morning!
I hope things are going ok for you and yours. I also hope the weather is treating you good. I’ve heard from a few of you who have had 5-8 inches of rain already this week…particularly south of me in Illinois. For our farm, we’ve had a couple of good rains come through. While some farms are sitting really good, a couple of them have actually had too much rain. Now, I’ll certainly take too much rain over not enough rain any day…but some of our flat black ground is going to have plenty of bare spots this fall. With that being said, I have to think we’ll see some really good yields. We did spray fungicide on several of our corn fields, especially with the warm and wet conditions. For beans, we sprayed every field we farm…and I feel good about those decisions. While prices aren’t much to get excited about and the amount of bushels it takes to pay for the fungicide is certainly more than most years, I’m trying to raise every bushel I can to hopefully turn some profit. Now, I now a few of you who have said your crop doesn’t look that great so you don’t want to throw any more money at it…I can certainly understand that thought process as crop insurance could certainly pay some big claims with the prices we’re looking at this year. As always, keep us posted if possible…I appreciate the feedback. matt@agmarket.net
The corn and bean markets both had a nice close on the day with plus signs for a change. While beans were in the red early on, the corn market was solid…and ended up spilling over to prop up beans and help them settle higher. Some concern coming into the day was due to the US ordering the Chinese consulate in Houston be shut down within 72 hours…obviously the Chinese didn’t take kindly to that, but most indications are grain buyers are trying to look for the best deals and not get involved in the political side. Outside markets were supportive as September crude oil settled down 2 cents at $41.90. This was 13 cents off the high and 76 off the low. The DOW was up 158 points at 26,884. The Dollar continued its recent weakness, settling down .14, closing at 94.92.
Corn – The corn market hasn’t had many up days of late but had one on Wednesday. September corn closed 4 ¾ cents higher at $3.27 ½. This was a half-penny off the high and 5 ¼ cents off the low of the day. The EIA report from the Department of Energy showed corn usage for ethanol was off by over a million bushels…down for the first time in 11 weeks! Usage came in at 91.5 million bushels of corn usage. The corn market hasn’t done much at all of late…but finally showed life. Giving some support was talk that China has more purchases to come for US corn and other grains. With talk of DDGs as well as more wheat, it appears the Chinese buying spree could turn out to be more than many of us were willing to assume. One up day isn’t much in the grand scheme of things and I am quite doubtful we’ll see much more buying. Given the big crop the trade is assuming is on the way and a forecast that looks conducive to it possibly growing, I would imagine rallies will be capped and producers might do well to have a plan in place to raise the cash they need this fall…before harvest starts.
Soybeans – Soybeans haven’t been rallying much either but have fared better than corn the last couple of weeks. With spill-over support from corn, the bean market was able to keep some momentum. August beans settled 2 ¾ cents higher at $8.99 ¼. The close was two cents off the high and 7 ¼ off the low of the day. The bean market has certainly seen better support than corn since the July USDA report, but getting a sustained price above $9 has been tough for some time. While we need more rain to ‘finish’ the bean crop over the next 3-4 weeks, it seems the trade is assuming a big bean crop as well. I’m not getting in a big hurry to make sales just yet but struggle to sit on the sideline when we see rallies. My best advice would be to have offers in at prices you can make work and hope you can sell a couple of increments.
Call us if you want to talk positions or strategy…or simply bend our ear. If you want more information on the markets, be sure to visit my team’s website at https://www.agmarket.net/
Matt Bennett
217-273-1133 – Work
@chief321 – Twitter
matt@bennettconsulting.net – E-mail
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