Good Morning!
I hope all is well in your part of the world. In ours, we’ve had a good week so far. We’ve picked some corn, which ended up a bit drier than what we thought it would be. While we had picked some 5 or 6 days ago that was planted in late May that tested 22%, some of the corn planted a week later tested under 20. On yields, our lighter ground has definitely won the battle this year on both corn and beans with yields 30+ higher on corn and 10+ higher on beans. We don’t have many beans left to cut…and will be down to river-bottoms today. I appreciate all of the yield updates. I’ve gotten some impressive yields out of Iowa, some disappointing yields out of the I-states and a few of a variable flavor otherwise. I appreciate the info. mbennett@AgMarket.Net
The corn and bean markets were steady to higher on the overnight markets for the third day in a row but couldn’t hold any excitement together for the third day in a row. With talks of Chinese purchases exciting the market this week, it appears many are more in the camp of ‘show me the money’ before getting too worked up. With the political climate so rocky as President Trump sees the heat of impeachment firing up and China’s Premier Xi battling poor optics from the Hong Kong situation, it appears a deal happening isn’t a given. My colleague Bill Biedermann says it either makes the deal imminent as both need good news or makes it less-likely as both lose ‘power’. The outside markets were mostly friendly, as the Dollar index was steady on the day while crude was higher. December crude oil was up $1.41 at $55.89.
Corn – The corn market was steady to higher on the overnight but lost ground and settled steady to lower on the day. December corn ended the day at $3.87 ¾, down a quarter of a penny. This was a penny and three-quarters off the high and 3 ¾ cents off the low. The EIA report from the Department of Energy showed corn usage for ethanol up around 2 ½ million bushels at just under 100 million bushels. This is the best usage we’ve seen in 6 weeks. I think this corn market is in a holding pattern until we get more information. It certainly seems like the $4.02 we saw a week ago on Sunday evening is the high for the time being. To get a rally back to and over those prices, we need to see demand pick up, especially on the export front. While the verdict is out on total production for corn here in 2019, there’s no doubt in my mind we’ve lost some bushels due to the winter-type storm activity we’ve seen in the last couple of weeks. The big question is if some of this corn is better than expected in other areas. I am not interested in selling more corn for now…but as I’ve said, would take advantage of the strong basis if I had to choose on sell versus store commercially.
Soybeans – Soybeans closed quietly on a day where the range was pretty big for a day when a few contracts closed unchanged. November beans ended day down a quarter of a penny at $9.33 ¾. The close was 5 ¼ cents off the high and 6 off the low. There wasn’t much in the way of news just a day after the bean market saw double-digit gains at times based on excitement over the Chinese opening the way for buyers to purchase up to ten million metric tons of soybeans tariff-free. While talk is cheap, it’s especially cheap when looking at how this US/Chinese deal has gone. Anyone who has witnessed the way China has booked and cancelled soybeans shipments over the years knows exactly what I mean. For bean growers, we’ve seen a good jump in cash values with stronger basis levels and the futures rally. I like selling into a rally…but still feel like we will see more upside. I’ve not been bullish beans in some time, but with the way the US crop appears to be shrinking, the US Dollar cooling off and South America having some weather issues, the bean landscape has changed a bit. I’m in a holding pattern on beans as well but will have offers waiting in the event we get a rally like I could see us getting.
Call me if you want to talk positions or strategy. 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
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