Corn & Soybean Update from Matt Bennett | June 24

I hope your week is going well. Mine has been just fine so far with quite pleasant weather as temps have moderated quite a bit. The main talk around weather has been the forecasts. I’ve talked to several of you looking at the same things I am, and for my area, some of the models are showing 4-8 inches of rain in the next week! Man, I hope we don’t get anything like that. While a good soaking rain towards the end of June is always welcome for those of us who don’t have wheat to harvest, it wouldn’t necessarily be welcome to get the kind of rains we’ve seen in the forecast. Those of you trying to harvest wheat in the next several days are also irritated I’m sure, but hopefully we’ll see moderated amounts and the ability to get your harvesting done asap. Weather is pretty much the name of the game this time of year, so keep me posted if at all possible…and good luck this weekend. mbennett@agmarket.net    
 
The corn and bean markets spent time on both sides of unchanged for the overnight session. Given conflicting forecasts, the trade was unsure how to get positioned. With one eye on next week’s big report, it seems like some might stay on the sideline as extreme volatility is almost expected. Forecasts for big rains potentially in Iowa and east have coincided with a lack of relief in the Dakotas and Minnesota, so how these forecasts verify will be of utmost importance as we finish out this week. Outside markets likely had a mixed influence on Monday. August crude oil settled up 23 cents at $73.08. The DOW settled down 76 points at 33,759. The September contract on the Dollar was a shade higher, settling up .034 at 91.820.  

The corn market was mixed on the overnight session, while the day session saw selling come in…but fortunately, some buying showed up and shored up the deferred contracts, minimizing losses. On the close, July corn settled up 4 ½ cents at $6.64 ¼. This was 2 cents off the high and a nickel off the low of day. Dec settled just 3 ¼ cents lower at $5.35 ¾, 7 cents off the low. With the July gaining on December big-time this week, bull-spreading is the feature as we see July about to go off of the board. It’s interesting given September is almost a dollar lower…making one wonder how September will act once July expires. Corn usage for ethanol numbers were strong according to the Department of Energy’s EIA report. With just under 106 million bushels of corn used, we were up over two million bushels from a week ago levels. While stocks were higher on the week, most feel they’ll dwindle as summer driving season gets into full-swing. This corn market is heavily depending on forecasts right now. IF we get a big rain over 75% of the corn-belt this weekend and it isn’t too extreme, rallies could be tough to come by. Even with North and South Dakota as well as Minnesota missing many of these rains, I’m not sure the trade will want to buy corn just yet. Let’s see what acreage does next week and it will give us a better idea of total crop size. Until then and always, base your decisions solely on your farm’s situation. IF you’ve had plenty of rain and are sitting pretty, selling some corn or buying puts makes sense. As always, be smart when managing risk as locking up too many bushels before the combines roll can be painful.  Use the risk-management tools available and get ahold of me if you need any help. 

Soybeans were mixed on the overnight trade as well but headed south late in the day session and closed mostly lower. July beans settled down 9 ½ cents at $13.85. The close was 21 ¾ cents off the high and 4 off the low of the day. November beans closed down 2 cents at $13.00 ¼. This bean market as well has been quite hard to figure out. While the Chinese have come back in and bought a bunch of beans of late which have been showing up on the morning wire, the trade is trying to balance what they see as good weather with solid demand. My thoughts on bean acres for next week is they’ll certainly go up, but by how much is the real question. While me and my team feel they could go up a million acres or so, some feel they could go up 3-million-acres, while one firm posted the chance they could go down. Now…if they don’t pick up a decent amount of acres on this report, we’re looking at a sharp rally as the balance sheet needs more acres. Given that, I’m going to be patient as I have several beans sold already…I’d like to see how the acreage plays out as well as weather moving forward. Getting over 50% sold this early in the summer is a bit risky for my blood.    

**For the strategies I talk about on here, please remember these are the tools I use for my farm.  These are not recommendations but merely a way for the reader to see how I approach marketing for my operation.  There are tons of good tools out there. For more information on markets, strategies and ways to set up a solid marketing plan, visit my website at https://agmarket.net
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I hope you have a great week. Please let me know if I can help you in any way.