Thursday, February 6, 2025, 7:30 a.m.

Wednesday was a negative day for our markets.  Spot corn closed down 1 1/4, spot soybeans closed down 18, harvest winter wheat closed down 2 1/2 and harvest spring wheat closed down 1/4.  In the overnight trade all of our markets have returned to the positive side.  Oil closed down $1.67 yesterday at $71.03 per barrel.  It is stronger in trading this morning with it now trading at $71.43 per barrel.  Our dollar had a high yesterday morning of $0.701 US and then trended lower going down to $0.696 US in the overnight trade.  It has bounced up just a bit this morning with it currently valued at $0.697 US.

Our markets went negative yesterday after a couple of positive days.  Tariff talk or the latest verbiage out of President Trump surprisingly did not seem to be the main issues yesterday.  Weather in South America weighed over the corn and soybean markets.  Currently much of Brazil is getting dryer and this should help their soybean harvest to speed up.  This will also get the planters moving for their Safrinha corn crop.  In Argentina scattered rain events are bringing more moisture to their dryer areas.  Talk of large cuts in production amounts from Argentina for this year’s crop seems to be diminishing.

Ethanol production in the US bounced back up last week after a sharp decrease the previous week.  It came in at 1.112 million barrels per day which was 10% higher than the previous week.  Even with the large production increase stock levels only increased by 2.7% week over week.  Ethanol exports from the US increased in December over November by 6 million gallons to sit at 194 million gallons.  Canada continues to be the largest buyer of US ethanol with year over year purchases up 45%.

Some wheat news out of China has them reselling or postponing about 600,000 tonnes of current shipments due to strong domestic stock levels.  They are selling some of these shipments to other East Asian markets.  China is the largest wheat importer in the world and any decrease in their imports is definitely a negative for the global wheat market.

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.