Mark's Market Talk

We saw another volatile week in the grain trade last week. Normally we do not see this much movement in the late winter early springtime. Maybe the time change, or the position of the moon had something to do with it. Here is what we do know. After trading from 12 lower to 12 higher on daily closes May corn ended the week 18 cents higher while Dec corn was down 7 cents. The Chinese finally stepped into the market and bought 157 million bushels of old crop corn. This had been expected for some time and the timing matched up with a trade summit last week between the 2 countries. The timing is interesting to say the least. New crop was pushed lower by some decent rains in the dry western corn belt along with the belief that higher old crop prices will promote more acres getting planted this spring. May beans finished the week 24 higher while the Nov was 14 higher. Bean export sales have dwindled down to a crawl as Brazilian beans are well priced under us. The funds continue to support their long positions. They roll a few investors out of the way when the market drops 25 cents. Then they buy right back in. The next market moving news may come next week when the USDA releases the March planting intentions report. The early private numbers show increases in both corn and bean acres. Most of them do not expect the normal amount of prevent plant acres. The higher prices will provide an incentive to plant even if the time gets late. Of course, the weather will need to cooperate to allow all this planting to happen. It appears the market volatility could very easily continue until mid- summer this year. And while this will lead to down days, it also will provide rally days and sale opportunities. We just need to be smart enough to know which opportunities to jump on.