Wednesday was a positive day for our markets. Harvest corn closed up 1 1/2, harvest soybeans closed up 6 1/2, harvest winter wheat closed up 2 1/4 and harvest spring wheat closed up 1/4. In the overnight trade corn and winter wheat are negative, soybeans are mixed and spring wheat is positive. Oil closed up $1.83 yesterday at $90.03 per barrel. It is weaker this morning with it now trading at $89.41 per barrel. Our dollar had a high yesterday around noon of $0.719 US and has trended mostly lower since them. This morning it is currently valued at $0.715 US.
It was nice to see our markets close positive yesterday after they all traded part of the day on the negative side. With concerns that the war against Iran was escalating crude oil prices went higher and this helped to support our commodities. As some concern that the war was going to ramp back up to previous levels have eased so has crude oil prices and our commodities. Our markets are looking for reasons to trade either higher or lower and it is possible today that the USDA will give us some information to move our markets one way or another.
With the monthly WASDE report being released today the marketplace will be looking at the USDA for some directions. Although no changes are expected for this year’s yield projections for corn and soybeans they could be adjusting winter wheat yields. The most likely scenario today is that the USDA increases some production estimates for crops in South America. They also could play with the corn balance sheet with increased corn exports out of the US and possibly decreased ethanol and feed usage in the US. For soybeans the slow export data should result in decreased export totals however the strong crush market in the US should result in higher domestic usage. Many analysts think that the net result will be lower carryout stocks for both corn and soybeans. Let’s see what they actually report today and how the market will respond.
Weekly ethanol production in the US was unchanged last week at 1.108 million barrels per day. Ethanol exports were up just a bit and blender demand was also stronger. Net result was a decrease in ethanol stocks by 0.6% down to 24.45 million barrels. Based on the grind so far this year US ethanol production will come in just below previous USDA projections and that is why the suggestion was made above that this number could be changed in today’s WASDE report.
Geoffrey Guy | 613-880-2707
Bob Orr | 613-720-1271
Tony Mitchell | 613-227-2525
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