Wednesday July 21, 2010

***Morris River Terminal will be closed August for grain delivery due to updating the facility and new scale.***

Good afternoon bloggers! Today the market up and firm on the close.

Nearby corn +6 cents $3.80
Fall corn +6 cents $3.93

Nearby beans +3 cents $10.15
Fall beans +5 cents $9.78

Nearby wheat +11 cents $5.88

Today wheat led the charge and corn and beans followed suit. Technical buying seemed to be the 'name of the game' today and trade attempted to make up for the slip in the market the past few days. Corn and beans tried a few times to break the 5-6 cent range, but were both held to modest gains due to a very favorable weather outlook for the Corn Belt. There was a rumor circulating about the market that the Chinese purchased another 2-3 cargoes of US beans. There has been no confirmation as of yet on the purchase. The Gulf is bidding steady on beans at +95 cents over the August contract. Gulf corn is also steady at +35 cents over the July contract. Morris river corn basis has firmed a few cents as well and cash corn is $3.52.

Argentina is the number 2 corn supplier in the world following the USA. Argentina trimmed its bean planting estimates by 3%. Brazil seemed to get the memo and increased their bean estimates by 3%. Argentina also is on the list of top world wheat producers. Argentina farmers have produced less wheat than usual of the last 2 years due to the economy and weather conditions. Farmers continue to have issues in regards to Argentina wheat harvest. The USDA has US wheat production pegged at12 mil. tonnes for the 2010/11 forecast.

The Morris Terminal has been busy lately. We were taking wheat a few weeks ago and were able to complete a wheat barge. Beans and corn have been the usual as of late. Over the past few weeks, damaged grain has slowly been creeping up and we are working our very best to help producers out. Many elevators (including our river competition) have rejected loads greater than 5% damage. If you have any questions in regards to handling grain, discount schedules, or merchandising please do not hesitate to call. We will do our best to accommodate you

Stay classy Illinois,
Nathaniel Dubravec

Tuesday July 20th, 2010

Corn was under pressure from the open and traded lower all day in light volume closing down 7 cents. Funds sold an estimated 8000 contracts today and have sold an est. 18,000 contracts this week. Weather forecasts are maintaining no ridge of hot dry for the next 2 weeks. Large amounts of moisture have been reported in S Iowa, N Missouri and southern half of Illinois over the last 48 hrs. Poor ethanol margins, poor quality, and large producer selling since July 1st have all weighed on corn basis especially the Illinois River system. Currently at Morris there is 33 cents of carry built in from nearby to Dec 1st!

Soybeans made their daily low early on and bounced back modestly to close 3 cents higher. Funds were actually net buyers as the USDA announced another 115,000 MT of new crop beans sold to China. Soybean basis has remained firm with exports continuing to be loaded out and old crop stocks being fairly tight. We are getting to that time of year when end users will be counting down the days until new crop and trying to guess when they can break the basis and premium they are paying for old crop.

Scott Meyer