Wednesday May 19, 2010

Fact of the day: The official state tree is the White Oak. The official state insect is the Monarch Butterfly.

Good afternoon bloggers. Today the markets were on the defense and posted modest loses on the day. Nearby corn closed down -1 cent at $3.59. Nearby beans finished down half a cent at $9.38. Nearby wheat was up +2 cents at $4.69.

Fall corn was down 1 penny at $3.77. Chinese purchases of USA corn were finally confirmed. This is the first confirmation of China's purchases since talk started weeks ago. I was hoping this would have boosted corn prices today, but that didn't seem to be the case. Warm weather may be weighing in on the price of corn. Futures fell to their lowest level in 2 weeks as forecasts for warm weather increase expectations of a bumper crop this year. 67% of this years corn crop is rated as good to excellent. Corn exports continue to be good.

Fall beans fell -8 cents at $9.06. Export sales are at 9.7 mbu. and new crop export sales are at 7.8 mbu. China still is buying our beans over South America. There is talk of Chinese buyers canceling South American soybeans and replacing them with Uncle Sam soybeans. Today's talk is that weak closings are blamed on good USA bean planting and growing weather. This weekend's heat is needed in areas and we should definitely see some growth with a few consecutive warm days.

The Illinois River has come down since earlier this week and is now forecasted at 9'6". Morris, IL area is expected to get some rain this Friday. It shouldn't pose a threat to the river rising too much, but we'll keep an eye on it. IL river basis is firm. June and July corn basis is currently at -8.5.


Stay classy Illinois,
Nathaniel Dubravec