Mark's Market Talk for May 6, 2024

We closed higher last week as it appears we had some short covering happening late in the week. July corn ended the week 10 cents higher while beans advanced 38 cents. Wheat had some nice moves late in the week, but it needed it to overcome the early week losses. And for those of us that believe the “oat knows” they were up 28 cents. So, all in all it was a good week. Now the question is where we do go from here. Traders sometimes live by the saying that rain makes grain. Normally that is correct and most of the dry areas have had rain recently. But too much rain early in the season can either hold the crop back or push the planting dates later. Late planting wasn’t an issue in April, but as we approach mid-May it will become a topic. The southern part of our trade area has gone from a long-standing drought to a flood in the matter of a couple of weeks. Those areas will experience a delayed planting season. Plus, some of the crops that were planted early may not look the best today. A lot of years we have a selling opportunity sometime in late May and this could easily be one of those years. We need to continue to monitor the conditions, not just in our area, but the entire corn belt. Set some realistic price goals for both old and new crop bushels and market at least a portion of your bushels when these prices hit. None of us, especially me, can hit the high market every time so we need to play the averages, so we don’t get stuck with a lot of bushels and no sells on the books.