North Gower Grains

Friday was another mostly negative day for our markets.  Spot corn closed down 3, spot soybeans closed up 10 1/2, harvest winter wheat closed down 4 1/4 and harvest spring wheat closed down 6 3/4.  In the overnight trade corn and the wheat sector are positive with soybeans mixed.  Oil closed down $1.30 on Friday at $96.57 per barrel.  It is much stronger in trading this morning with it now trading at $103.72 per barrel.  Our dollar traded between a low of $0.722 US and a high of $0.725 on Friday with it closing out at the low end of the range.  This morning with some choppy trading it is currently valued at $0.723 US.

Talks between Iran and the US did not go well over the weekend.  The end result was President Trump once again coming out with bombing threats against Iran and also stating that the US was going to control ships going through the Strait of Hormuz.  Crude oil prices have jumped back up and this is likely bringing some support over to our commodities this morning.

Soybean meal prices jumped big time on Friday and this supported the soybean market.  Analysts are saying that managed money liquidated some of their short position (looking for prices to do down) in soybean meal and some of their long position (looking for prices to go up) in soybean oil.  Net result was that soybean meal prices rallied strong.  We should also state that soybean meal exports have been very strong out of the US and that domestic demand also remains strong.

We should note that Managed Money decreased their long position in our commodities last week after increasing it for eight consecutive weeks.  It looks like the largest decease was in the corn market.

Corn prices have fallen almost 40 cents from their recent highs in the nearby market.  Last week with the USDA did not increase production estimates for the corn crop this year in Argentina.  Many analysts were predicting an increase as projections in Argentina has this crop about 10 million tonnes stronger than current USDA numbers.  This could have been weighing on the market last week.

Wheat prices have continued their recent wild swing in prices.  Remember that the global market remains well supplied even if with some different production problems this year around the world.  Currently those would include how the winter wheat crop was affected in the US by the drought like conditions and also how will the Australian crop be affected this year by the lack of fertilizer.