April 22nd Grain Marketing Update

Good Morning!

I know from what many of you have shared that some seed is going in the ground so far this week. For us, we’re sitting for the time being. We had almost two inches of rain between Wednesday and Friday night’s rains. On our tiled ground, we’re hoping we can get going Wednesday afternoon or on Thursday. With some rain forecasted, it’s hard to know what to do, but now that the soil temps are likely to stay where we want them-and with a forecast that isn’t heavy on rain totals, we’ll likely get after it. The cold mornings the last few days have kept the beans from all being up, but we do have most of our beans poking through. Given the frost some had last weekend, I was ok with them not quite being up just yet. Keep me posted. For on AgMarket, click here. https://hubs.li/Q03qt2Qd0

The corn and bean markets both posted rallies on Tuesday. For corn, it was the second day in a row. With some weather delays and fertilizer value challenges, the trade seems wary of selling this corn market off just yet. With the back-and-forth in the Middle-East, the markets continue to be gripped by outside influences. Outside markets should have provided a mixed bias:

• The US Dollar settled up .314 at 98.221.
• June crude oil settled up 2.25 at 89.67.
• The DOW settled down 300 points at 49,339.

Corn – The corn market showed solid gains both on Monday and Tuesday. May corn closed up 1 ¾ at $4.53. This was 1 ½ off the high and 3 off the low. Corn export inspections were above expectations at 1.668 mmt. This was less than a week ago but impressive nonetheless. Shipments of corn are running over 32% ahead of last year while the USDA is forecasting around a 15% increase. A couple of nice export sales announcements on Tuesday morning supported trade, taking prices from lower to higher rather quickly. Demand staying strong has certainly been a supportive feature. With 11% of the crop planted, we’re on pace with a year ago while 2% ahead of the 5-year average. Given several are still sitting this week, the weather this week and weekend will certainly be watched. Again, it’s still early to talk about losing acres, but the combination of a little lag in areas where some may not have fertilizer bought is in the backs of traders’ minds. While I’m not necessarily bullish, it sure seems like this corn market wants to make a run at $5-particularly Dec26 corn, which settled up 2 ¼ at $4.81 ¾.

Soybeans – Soybeans were a shade lower on Monday but got that back and then some on Tuesday. May beans were up 8 ¾ at $11.74 ½. This was 4 off the high and 9 ½ off the low. May soybean meal was up .2 at 325.3, while soy oil surged higher, settling up 2.51 at 72.14. Weekly inspections showed bean shipments at 748k mt, which was below expectations again and below what we saw a week ago. Bean planting continues ahead of corn this spring with 12% of the crop planted versus 7% a year ago and 5% as a 5-year average. It’s certainly interesting to see bean planting ahead of corn-as a kid, its seemed everyone used to plant corn before beans-but that has certainly shifted. What drove the market higher on Tuesday may have had a bit to do with the trade thinking bean planting was farther along, but what was likely a bigger culprit was bean oil surging to multi-year highs. With global bio-fuel momentum, not just in the US, consumption of bean oil continues to grow. The balance sheet for beans is still rather adequate, but the ramp up in fuel has certainly helped highlight a need for countries to produce fuel domestically when possible. Beans have been range-bound for some time, so some caution is warranted here. However, it sure seems like beans want to make a run at $12 again. Nov beans settled at $11.66 ½, up 8 ¾.

mbennett@agmarket.net

Matt Bennett

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