Thursday was a positive day for our markets. Spot corn closed up 2, spot soybeans closed up 3 1/2, harvest winter wheat closed up 13 1/4 and harvest spring wheat closed up 10 1/2. In the overnight trade corn, soybeans and winter wheat are now negative with spring wheat alone on the positive side. Oil closed down $0.42 yesterday at $70.61 per barrel. It is stronger in trading this morning with it now trading at $71.14 per barrel. Our dollar had a low yesterday morning of $0.696 US and then trended higher going up to $0.699 US later in the day. It has fell back just a bit this morning with it currently valued at $0.698 US.
It was nice to see our markets close positive yesterday after starting the day on the negative side. The wheat complex led our commodities higher. Reports out of Russia have their posted export prices increasing the last couple of weeks and this probably is helping to give the market a push. There is also talk that managed money may be liquidating some of their short position (looking for prices to go down). As we have talked about this many time when the speculative funds start to liquidate their positions they normally push the market faster and farther the other way than normal supply / demand fundamentals would be indicating.
Ukraine exported another 2.5 million tonnes of corn in January. Last year they produced about 26 million tonnes with plans to export about 22 million tonnes. So far this marketing year they have exported 12.4 million tonnes. We should note that Ukraine continues to be a major competitor to Canadian corn being exported to Europe.
The rain in Argentina has been upgraded from scattered events to a few major downpours. This is most definitely helping to alleviate the dry weather that much of their growing crops have gone through this year. As we noted yesterday the dry weather in Brazil should be helping their soybean harvest to ramp up this week. Reports of large yields are also starting to surface after early yields were a bit disappointing.
Friday thoughts: You cannot add days to your life but you can add life to your days!
If you would like to talk about the markets or price some of your crop for the future or in store, please reach out to us via phone or email to info@northgowergrains.com. Prices quoted herein are for product at our elevator.
Delores Seiter | 613-880-7458
Bob Orr | 613-720-1271
Office | 613-489-0956
