Mark's Market Talk

China finally opened their purse strings last week and bought around 80 million bushels of corn from the US. This should be the start of some serious buying from them as our corn is priced right and we have the available supply. This helped push May corn 17 cents higher for the week while the December contract was 3 cents higher. Crude oil was lower dipping below 70.00 which held the corn market from advancing further. The President has said they will start putting oil back into the reserve they have about drained, when oil is 67 to 70 a barrel. That should put support under the market which in turn will support the corn market. While corn pushed higher last week, beans continued their down ways. May beans closed the week 31 cents lower, and the November contract was 15 cents lower. Brazil is getting along with their harvest and are at the stage where they almost allow the buyers to make buying offers. This week the spread between US and Brazil beans pushed out to over a dollar less for the Brazilian beans. We not only lose export sales but some think it is wide enough we could see beans being imported into the US. A lot of time the mere mention of doing this hurts the market as much as if the beans actually get imported. Weather is starting to become a prevalent topic as our nice mid-February weather has become not so friendly March weather. We recognize that it is on the early side to start putting a weather premium in, but a couple weeks from now it might happen. The US grain stocks are adequate, but they are not large enough to absorb a short 23 crop. Lots of activity will happen in the next 60 days. Just remember to keep an eye on the markets.