North Gower Grains

Thursday was a mixed day for our markets.  Spot corn closed down 2 3/4, spot soybeans closed down 3 1/4, harvest winter wheat closed up 4 3/4 and harvest spring wheat closed up 12 1/4.  In the overnight trade corn and spring wheat are positive with soybeans and winter wheat on the negative side.  Oil closed down $0.12 yesterday at $91.17 per barrel.  It is weaker again this morning with it now trading at $87.62 per barrel.  Our dollar started out yesterday morning at $0.728 US and has trended higher since then.  This morning it is currently valued at $0.731 US.

The winter wheat market continues to be supported by dryness in the US over much of their HRW wheat growing regions.  The newest weather forecast has more rain coming at the end of this month but dryness until then.  This forecast is also talking about a frost warning for Friday night in much of the growing area.  Any frost would have the potential to hurt yield potential for the growing crop.  As the HRW wheat rallies it pulls up both our SRW wheat and HRS wheat markets.  What the top in these markets will end up being is yet to be seen.

Corn prices have now fallen for 7 of the last 8 trading days.  Some recent moisture over much of the US Corn Belt is seen as a positive for the US corn crop which is of course a negative for prices.  Although the safrinha corn crop in Brazil is experiencing at least a short term need for precipitation, the larger than expected crop in Argentina should result in an extra 10 million tonnes of production out of South America this year as compared to last year.  This of course means more competition for the US on the world market and is therefore negative for prices.  The trend is not our friend in this market. 

All of the markets will be watching to see how negotiations go this weekend between the US and Iran.  How they play out will definitely affect us for the start of next week.  Have a great weekend.

Friday’s thought: Open minded people do not care to be right, they care to understand.  There is never a right or wrong answer.  Everything is about understanding!