Mark's Market Talk

Maybe the best way to describe last week’s grain markets would be “WOW”. Part of the week they acted like a restless person trying to find a comfortable position. We don’t talk about wheat much, but it was the most restless and early in the week it held corn back from following beans higher. By Thursday wheat was back even and then corn did become a follower of the bean trade. At the end of the week March corn was 20 cents higher while Dec advanced 4 cents. Today corn futures are in a weather market with old crop leading the way. There is still a lot of uncertainty concerning the weather in South America. If their bean crop has been damaged there has to be reduced first crop corn yields which will bring the US more export business. The tensions between Russia and the Ukraine are also lending us some support. So today it is easy to agree that March corn trading above 6.30 makes sense and going to 6.50 is a possibility. However, the fact that December corn is somewhat struggling is confusing. Today new crop corn in our area is in the 5.25 range while new crop beans are in the 12.90 range. With the high cost of fertilizer, especially nitrogen, the math seems to favor beans. The current ratio is 2.45. Normally that gives corn the advantage. But 1500.00 anhydrous tips the scale a bit. We are 8 weeks away from the March planting intentions report so there will plenty of time for this to play out. March beans finished last week 56 cents higher while Nov was 35 cents higher. SA weather, veg oil demand, and inflation fears continue to be the drivers. Farmer selling has been heavy the past 30 days and we all know that once the farmer has sold down his stocks, things can get interesting. Processors widened their basis last week. Not because they weren’t making money, they are still making 2.00 plus on the crush. The wider basis was caused by the amount of farmer selling that has most processors flush with stocks for the next 30 days. Meanwhile the commercials will hold for better basis levels that will show up after March 1. If you have old stocks of either crop you should feel good about being nicely rewarded for holding. Marketing some grain on large move days should insure you won’t have to sell all of it on the way down. We bought a lot of new crop beans last week, especially Friday when they came close to 13.00 that morning. Not a bad place to make some sales at a profitable level.