North Gower Grains

Wednesday was another mostly positive day for our markets.  Spot corn closed up 2 1/4, spot soybeans closed up 7 3/4, harvest winter wheat closed down 4 3/4 and harvest spring wheat closed up 2 1/4.  In the overnight trade all of our markets are on the negative side.  Oil closed up $6.95 yesterday at $106.88 per barrel.  It is weaker this morning with it now trading at $104.04 per barrel.  Our dollar had a low of $0.730 US yesterday before lunch and has trended higher since then.  This morning it is currently valued at $0.733 US.

Winter wheat prices pulled back at the close yesterday after trading positive for most of the day.  The disappointing thing for wheat prices was that they closed about 18 cents off the high for the day and they are down again this morning.  It is looking like that we have hit a high in this market at least for the short term.  Remember that the HRW wheat crop is poor in the US and this can only support our SRW wheat market to a certain limit and this may now have been met.

Soybean prices were looking yesterday like they were going to break out on the positive side from their recent 20 cent trading range.  Market analysts seem to be very positive on what might occur for this market when the meeting between President Trump and President Xi takes place next month.  However, this meeting was already postponed once and hopefully does go forward next month.  Last time when the meeting was postponed the soybean market went limit down before bouncing back.

Corn prices continued their recent rally yesterday and have now closed positive for 10 of the last 11 trading days with December futures.  Prices have pull back this morning after they hit a new calendar high for new crop futures.  It is to early for weather concerns for the US crop and we should remember that planting progress reported earlier this week was strong.  The premium in this market is mostly a war premium which could disappear likely faster than it appeared.  With this thought it might be a great time to take advantage of the strong price and get some production booked for the coming year.

The Bank of Canada held their benchmark interest rate steady yesterday.  They did state that with inflation being pushed up with the higher price of crude oil we could see interest rate increases later this year.