Thursday, April 18, 7:20 a.m. – Wednesday was another mostly negative day for our markets. New crop corn closed down 2 1/2, new crop soybeans closed up 2 3/4, new crop winter wheat closed down 12 1/2 and new crop spring wheat closed down 5 3/4. In the overnight trade corn and soybeans are negative with the wheat sector on the positive side. Oil closed down $2.67 yesterday at $82.69 per barrel. It is weaker again this morning with it now valued at $81.88 per barrel. Our dollar started out yesterday morning at $0.724 US and has traded mostly higher since then. This morning it is currently valued at $0.727 US. Soybean prices bounced back a little yesterday after a couple of poor negative days. Prices on the Chinese exchange have pulled back this week for both soybeans and soybean meal. This could be a sign of demand decreasing or just that supplies from the harvest in Brazil are now available and this is pushing the price lower. Either way it is not a good sign for North American soybeans when prices in China decrease. Traders are searching the globe to find reasons to move our markets. Weather concerns in parts of Argentina will probably result in a smaller corn crop then originally projected, but not enough to move markets. Moisture in winter wheat growing regions of the US should be beneficial growth but again nothing really significant in production changes. Ukraine exports are down a bit year over year but they project to have 50 million tonnes of grains for export this year. Again not a market mover. It seems that our markets will be waiting for spring plantings in the US and how the crops get growing this year to give prices a firm direction.
