Mark's Market Talk for February 26, 2024

There are only so many ways to describe a market that continues to move lower, and we seem to have used all of them. The trade started higher last Tuesday following a 3-day weekend. But it wasn’t to be a reversal week as we traded lower the next 3 days. Corn ended the week down 16 cents and the Marh contract closed a tick below 4.00 Friday. Meanwhile beans lost a big 39 cents last week. There are lots of possible reasons for this big sell off floating around. Some think there were a lot of basis contracts that need priced prior to the end of the month. Some of this grain was delivered late last fall and put on a priced later contract. The board has been in a steady downturn since so a lot of this grain still needs to be priced. Traders know this and they intend to make producers suffer more than they deserve. Some of these contracts may get rolled out to a later month, but when you add in the cost to do this along with the risk, it may just add more misery. On top of this grain is a large amount of farmer owned grain that needs a new home soon. The stock market continues to fair well and is still pulling money away from the commodity markets. Ukraine is exporting more corn and wheat than expected. Their farmers are no different than ours. If there is any way to export grain, they will find it as they are still struggling with the war. It may appear to be all bad news right now, but there might be a small light in the tunnel. Prices worldwide are tough, and everybody is searching for ways to survive. Brazil farmers may plant more sorghum than planned this summer due to lower production costs which would pull some acres away from corn. The Brazil bean harvest is past the halfway point which normally signals a high in their markets. We also have the entire growing season ahead in the US while the second crops in South America are just being planted. So, at the end of the day there is no easy answers at this point. If you have old crop grain to market just know you have a lot of company.