Mark's Market Talk for October 30, 2023

Two weeks ago, the commodities were all higher, this past week they were all lower. Corn finished the week 15 cents lower while beans were a nickel lower. Corn has become a follower of the wheat market and that has meant lower prices. Export sales have taken place, but we have not seen the big shipment sales to China. They have almost bought all the South American corn that was available and with the Black Sea being a shipping problem China will need to come to the US for corn. Of course, we are not their favorite provider of grain but at some point, they will need some of our corn. Meanwhile we are well past the halfway point of harvest and the big talk tends to be about yield. The majority of the Midwest reports mention better than expected corn yields. Does that mean a lot of people underestimated their crop potential or is this corn crop that good. The answer is probably a combination of both. If we flip to beans, we had a real loser of a week going until we got to Friday when we got most of the week’s loses back. Right now, bean meal is the leader as we have begun to pick up the business that Argentina is losing since they are short on bean supplies. If the soy oil market would pick up, beans could make some major advances. But they say there is currently a glut of biofuel on the market that is tempering the veg oil prices.  Not sure that makes a lot of sense with the high cost of diesel right now. Somehow it must all tie together and hopefully it balances itself out and we approach the new year with higher markets.