Tuesday June 29, 2010

Good afternoon friends! Today the name of the game was a stronger US dollar and weak outside markets. This proved to be an uphill battle for commodities. Corn, beans, and wheat all posted loses in anticipation for Wednesday's USDA report. Corn closed -7 to -9 today. Fall corn finished the day at $3.44. Beans closed -6 to -9 as well. Fall beans are at $9.12. Beans gave an honest effort around mid-day today, but eventually any upward momentum eventually dissipated. 'Turnaround Tuesday' did not hold up to its expectations. Hopefully we can get a 'Worthwhile Wednesday' following the report and regain some of what was lost today.

Fresh news before the market opened this morning was that China purchased 230K tons of beans for 2010/11. China's quarantine authority has allowed use for the first cargo of USA GMO corn in 4 years for feed production. Cargill also sold 55K tons of corn to South Korea. Weather forecasts continue to look great overall for the Corn Belt. This has allowed for a sub-par weather premium and a few cents to erode from the market. Crop conditions are still looking good overall for Illinois even with the amount of rain we have been getting. Some producers are dealing with water and some wind damage from last week's storms that raced across most of Illinois.

Expectations for tomorrow's USDA report have this years corn plantings at 89.2 million acres. This figure is half a million acres great from the March USDA Planting Intentions Report (PIR). Bean plantings are estimated to be around 78.1 million acres. That is nearly 100K acres more since the March USDA PIR.

The Gulf is bidding firmer today for June and July corn to try and shake some bushels loose. Producer movement and sell off has been slow because of the market deteriorating the past week. The Illinois River water levels have dropped a few feet since last week and has not halted loading this week. It appears that the next few days of dry sunny weather will only encourage water levels to drop even further to a somewhat normal level.

Stay classy Illinois,
Nathaniel Dubravec