Mark's Market Talk for January 22, 2024

There really was not much news last week so today’s comments will be short. Corn ended the week a penny lower, and beans were down 11 cents. Corn keeps trying to gain ground but there seems to be a ceiling at 4.50 on the March contract that we are having trouble breaking through. With the funds being so short, they are short 260,000 corn contracts, at some point they will need to get back to even which should put a push in the market. However, they may wait till closer to planting time to decide what to do and they might roll their positions on down the road for a time. The bean market has been in a steady decline for several weeks now. China did buy some beans last week for nearby deliver, but we are at the time of year when the Brazil harvest gets going and the early beans will head to China. In 3 weeks, there should be some harvest data from Brazil that will give the world an idea of their production. Currently the funds are short 77,000 bean contracts which is a sizable amount. Just like the corn they will eventually need to even up, but knowing when that may happen is a big question. After 2 weeks of snow, bitter cold and wind, this week should be more moderate. Not sure if any of us want to see rain this time of year, especially on top of all of this snow, even though we can use the moisture. A good settling rain in April would be better.