Mark's Market Talk

We saw another jumpy market week that ended last Friday with Dec corn down 7 while Nov beans were 3 cents lower for the week. The USDA released the September WADSE report Friday. They raised the expected corn yield a short 2 bushels to 176.3 while the bean yield went up .6 bushels to 50.6. They also adjusted the planted acres in this report as FSA felt they had the needed information a month earlier than normal. Corn acres increased 600,000 while the bean acre number went down 400,000 acres. Even though the bean carryout increased 30 million bushels, the board closed 16 cents higher Friday. Meanwhile the corn carryout increased 166 million bushels and corn ended 7 cents higher on Friday. This might tell us the trade was expecting more bearish numbers, or it just soothed the fears for the time being and we wait for harvest numbers. Back to the FSA acreage numbers, somehow the numbers they had given the USDA were released on Thursday. So far no one is taking the credit, or blame, for this. The way our trading system is set up today there were some major winners and losers before the real report was released. I give credit to the USDA that normally this information is kept under wraps until it is released to the public. I have spoken to people that have participated in the USDA lockdown on report day. They tell how the report is assembled in a short time prior to the release. The group that puts the report together each have a small part of the information, and no one has the complete report until it is released. The lock down room does not have any communication devises and once you enter the room you do not leave until the report has been released. Knowing this it causes some concern that the proper protocol was not followed here. Let’s hope the issue is resolved and the USDA regains our confidence going forward.