Mark's Market Talk for June 24, 2024
Jun 25, 2024
There were a lot of red numbers last week in the commodity markets. Corn closed the week down 15 cents while beans were 19 cents lower. The funds added to their short positions as the traders seem to have confidence we will raise an average or better crop. There are producers in a lot of areas that would argue that this may not happen. There are widespread areas where the wet spring has slowed planting and caused a lot of replanting. Yet there are also areas where the crops got planted in a timely manner and are considered in excellent condition. One difference this year is that some of the areas with the biggest problems are top producing areas. I have heard people in these areas say they have never experienced a spring like this where planting issues forced them to plant late, or more than once. This Friday the USDA will release their June acreage and production report. They will update the March numbers and we will see if they found the 4 to 6 million acres people thought they were short in that report. This report is almost always volatile, and it will certainly be this year. The numbers they will release will be as of June 1. Therefore, they will not have the latest count of prevent plant acres which may play a big role in the final crop acres. We will go over the report numbers next week.