Mark's Market Talk for April 22, 2024

Last Friday was a green day on the board of trade screen as all grains were higher. And it was very welcome as the week had been poor prior to Friday and we ended lower for the week on corn and beans. May corn was down 2 cents and May beans were 23 lower for the week. World bean stocks are in good supply and so buyers are in no rush to buy a lot of beans currently. However, there were stronger bids in South America last week as Farmers there are holding onto their remaining supplies waiting for better prices, just like we are in the US. Corn seems to have found some support as our corn is well priced in the world. Mexico has been a great customer as their production was down almost 20% last year due to dry weather. China is stretching their corn supplies, but they are starting to run short of quality grain so hopefully they will need some from us before the Safrina corn is ready in Brazil this summer. Nationally the corn and bean planting progress was about at the 5-year average last week. Some of our area is ahead of schedule due to favorable ground conditions the past 2 weeks. Farmer movement of grain has been minimal due to planting so local basis levels remain strong. Soy crush margins remain profitable though not as strong as they have been the last 2 years. Ethanol plants are currently in the black making 2 or 3 cents a gallon. The Biden Administration announced Friday that mid-western states will now be able to sell E15 year-round. This will increase demand as time goes by, which will be farmer friendly. The fighting in the Middle East is keeping the markets volatile. The people in control of a large part of this area are hard to predict and this will be another market influence for a while. We are truly dealing with a world market, and we can no longer make decisions by just looking out our back door.