Good morning.
Ag’s are once again mixed to start Thursday at the CBOT, as has been the case most of this week. The weather forecast has spooked fund traders out of adding to their record short positions, but it has not to this point caused them enough trepidation to want to get out of the position all together. Until the prospect of record US yields is off the table or confirmed via combine data, the funds likely stay with their short positions. Corn futures this morning are around unchanged, soybean futures are down 3-4 cents, and the Chicago wheat market is down 4-5 cents. Products are mixed, soybean meal is trading around 50 cents/ton higher, and soybean oil is down 20-30 points. Outside markets are mostly lower, crude oil futures are down another $1.40/bbl and have again probed below the 200-day moving average, the Dow Jones index is down 10 points, and the US$ index is down 15 points. The S&P500 is near unchanged, and the NASDAQ is down 50 points as stock index futures catch their collective breath following yesterday’s lashing.
This morning’s weekly export sales report for the week ending July 18th is expected to show corn sales in a range of 475k-1.2 mil mt’s, soybean sales in a range of 700k-1.3 mil mt’s, and wheat sales are seen in a range of 300k-625k mt’s.
The second day of the Wheat Quality Council’s three-day crop tour of North Dakota wheat fields again showed yield potential that was significantly higher than last year. Scouts in the northwestern part of the state estimated average yield at 56 bpa, up from 41 bpa on the same route last year.
The total state yield was estimated at 53.7 bpa after day two of the tour was complete, compared to the post-day-two average last year pf 45.7 bpa. The figure compares to the current USDA estimate of 56 bpa for the whole state. The tour is expected to wrap up and give final results later this afternoon.
Australia’s securities regulator said on Thursday it was suing tow Chinese-state owned commodity companies for market manipulation in 2022. The regulator alleges that Cofco International Australia, as well as Cofco Resources, knowingly manipulated the price of wheat futures contracts 34 times between January 17 and March 3, 2022.
ASIC (Australian Securities & Investments Commission) says the companies entered orders for January 2023 wheat contracts shortly before the close of the day session, manipulating the contract’s closing price. This is commonly known as ‘marking the close.’
Following Wednesday’s equity market route, traders today will be focused on GDP data, as well as weekly jobs data, to provide direction into the weekend. The Fed’s preferred inflation gauge, the PCE index, will also be updated on Friday.
Otherwise, it will be next week’s Fed meeting, as well as a rate decision by the Bank of England, which will steal headlines and key markets into the end of the month. Traders are currently giving the BoE a 50% chance at a rate cut next week.
Joe Biden, in a televised address to the nation Wednesday evening, said he decided to forgo personal ambition to save democracy, and that he would be ‘passing the torch’ to his VP Kamala Harris.
Meanwhile, at a rally in North Carolina, Donald Trump attacked the aforementioned Harris, calling her a ‘radical left lunatic.’ He also commented on Biden’s speech saying in a social media post that it was, “barely understandable and sooo bad!”
Wrapping up the political headlines from Wednesday, Harris received endorsement from former President Barrack Obama, which political pundits view as a positive for the new Democratic candidate. The two are expected to campaign together in the near future according to sources.
A frontal boundary Wednesday caused thunderstorm/rain activity across parts of E IA, IL, IN, and S OH, with totals ranging from 0.1-1″ generally speaking. The south and southeast were again wet as well, as active Gulf moisture flow continues to provide precipitation to an area from E TX all the way up the East Coast and into New England.
Weather models continue to fluctuate with the exact location of the high-pressure ridge next week, which causes variations in precipitation locations as storms will pop along the periphery of the ridge. Both the GFS and the EU were slightly cooler in the eastern half of the country overnight, signaling a slightly more western bias to the ridge than was seen Wednesday.
Both the EU and GFS trended slightly wetter for the Ohio Valley and the eastern Corn Belt overnight for the middle of next week, which will help in alleviating stress from the coming heat. The coming hot forecast is only a real problem if moisture stays absent.
New 8–14-day CPC guidance out late yesterday is unchanged from the previous 24 hours’ version, while the EU model trended back slightly wetter in the week-two period for the Ohio Valley and southeastern Corn Belt. The GFS is somewhere in-between the two, with moisture farther north and east than both the EU and CPC.
Have a great day.
Grain Comments: 07-25-2024
Good morning.
Ag’s are once again mixed to start Thursday at the CBOT, as has been the case most of this week. The weather forecast has spooked fund traders out of adding to their record short positions, but it has not to this point caused them enough trepidation to want to get out of the position all together. Until the prospect of record US yields is off the table or confirmed via combine data, the funds likely stay with their short positions. Corn futures this morning are around unchanged, soybean futures are down 3-4 cents, and the Chicago wheat market is down 4-5 cents. Products are mixed, soybean meal is trading around 50 cents/ton higher, and soybean oil is down 20-30 points. Outside markets are mostly lower, crude oil futures are down another $1.40/bbl and have again probed below the 200-day moving average, the Dow Jones index is down 10 points, and the US$ index is down 15 points. The S&P500 is near unchanged, and the NASDAQ is down 50 points as stock index futures catch their collective breath following yesterday’s lashing.
This morning’s weekly export sales report for the week ending July 18th is expected to show corn sales in a range of 475k-1.2 mil mt’s, soybean sales in a range of 700k-1.3 mil mt’s, and wheat sales are seen in a range of 300k-625k mt’s.
The second day of the Wheat Quality Council’s three-day crop tour of North Dakota wheat fields again showed yield potential that was significantly higher than last year. Scouts in the northwestern part of the state estimated average yield at 56 bpa, up from 41 bpa on the same route last year.
The total state yield was estimated at 53.7 bpa after day two of the tour was complete, compared to the post-day-two average last year pf 45.7 bpa. The figure compares to the current USDA estimate of 56 bpa for the whole state. The tour is expected to wrap up and give final results later this afternoon.
Australia’s securities regulator said on Thursday it was suing tow Chinese-state owned commodity companies for market manipulation in 2022. The regulator alleges that Cofco International Australia, as well as Cofco Resources, knowingly manipulated the price of wheat futures contracts 34 times between January 17 and March 3, 2022.
ASIC (Australian Securities & Investments Commission) says the companies entered orders for January 2023 wheat contracts shortly before the close of the day session, manipulating the contract’s closing price. This is commonly known as ‘marking the close.’
Following Wednesday’s equity market route, traders today will be focused on GDP data, as well as weekly jobs data, to provide direction into the weekend. The Fed’s preferred inflation gauge, the PCE index, will also be updated on Friday.
Otherwise, it will be next week’s Fed meeting, as well as a rate decision by the Bank of England, which will steal headlines and key markets into the end of the month. Traders are currently giving the BoE a 50% chance at a rate cut next week.
Joe Biden, in a televised address to the nation Wednesday evening, said he decided to forgo personal ambition to save democracy, and that he would be ‘passing the torch’ to his VP Kamala Harris.
Meanwhile, at a rally in North Carolina, Donald Trump attacked the aforementioned Harris, calling her a ‘radical left lunatic.’ He also commented on Biden’s speech saying in a social media post that it was, “barely understandable and sooo bad!”
Wrapping up the political headlines from Wednesday, Harris received endorsement from former President Barrack Obama, which political pundits view as a positive for the new Democratic candidate. The two are expected to campaign together in the near future according to sources.
A frontal boundary Wednesday caused thunderstorm/rain activity across parts of E IA, IL, IN, and S OH, with totals ranging from 0.1-1″ generally speaking. The south and southeast were again wet as well, as active Gulf moisture flow continues to provide precipitation to an area from E TX all the way up the East Coast and into New England.
Weather models continue to fluctuate with the exact location of the high-pressure ridge next week, which causes variations in precipitation locations as storms will pop along the periphery of the ridge. Both the GFS and the EU were slightly cooler in the eastern half of the country overnight, signaling a slightly more western bias to the ridge than was seen Wednesday.
Both the EU and GFS trended slightly wetter for the Ohio Valley and the eastern Corn Belt overnight for the middle of next week, which will help in alleviating stress from the coming heat. The coming hot forecast is only a real problem if moisture stays absent.
New 8–14-day CPC guidance out late yesterday is unchanged from the previous 24 hours’ version, while the EU model trended back slightly wetter in the week-two period for the Ohio Valley and southeastern Corn Belt. The GFS is somewhere in-between the two, with moisture farther north and east than both the EU and CPC.
Have a great day.
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