Tuesday June 30th, 2009

The USDA June Acreage report out today showing a record 77.5 million acres of soybeans were planted through June, up 1.8 million acres from last year. Farmers also planted 87 million acres of corn, up 1 million acres from last year and the second-largest corn acreage in more than 60 years. These numbers help to explain what happened to the original 7 million acres that was seen missing from the USDA's March intention report. Nebraska and Iowa posted the biggest increase in corn acreage, up 600,000 and 500,000 acres from the March report, respectively. The market responded fiercely to this and corn was down the limit from the opening, unable to recover. Analyst has been projecting corn acreage between 82.5 million acres to 86 million acres, with predictions on soybeans between 75 to 79 million acres.

The USDA also reported a bigger supply of corn reserves on hand than many analysts expected. About 4.27 billion bushels of corn is stored on farms and grain bins, up 6 percent from last year and above the 4.18 billion bushes analysts had predicted.

Outside markets also provided little support for commodities with both gold and crude oil down sharply after a bearish consumer confidence report was released this morning. The dollar also saw a gain against the Euro and Pound. The Dow Jones closed the day down 82 points.

~Chris Spurlock