Mark's Market Talk

Commodity markets can not go up week after week and not suffer a setback at some point. For corn and beans that point came last week as several things combined to push us lower. We are now into the first true weather market of the season. The forecasts agree that warm/hot temps will spread across the Midwest this week. But they do not agree on the rain chances. A dry week will turn the planters loose and everybody is ready to go. More wet weather and the planters will sit, and we start looking at the calendar as the optimum corn planting time starts to pass by us. We still have world issues affecting our markets. Late last week I read a prediction that 50 percent of the spring crops in Ukraine had been planted. The report did not mention how far behind normal they are, or how much will they be able to plant. Brazil is forecasted to see some rain in the Safrina corn areas this week which may add some weight to their drought damaged crop. For those that farm and have a 401 last week held a double punch as the equity markets took some big hits. The fear that inflation may push us into a recession has a lot of investors nervous and some are pulling their money out of the stock market. Commodities have always been used as an inflation hedge so perhaps some of this money will find its way to the board and give us a bounce. Last week July corn was 29 cents lower while the Dec was down 30 cents. July beans were 63 lower while the Nov finished the week 44 cents lower. Meanwhile the wheat markets were 45 to 60 cents higher due to production problems in several places in the world. This Thursday the USDA will release their May stocks report which will include their first glimpse of what they think our new carryout might be. This report will garner attention, but weather will be the dominate story for now.