2/15/2022

Major risk-off in corn, soybeans, and wheat following the evaporation of any imminent Russian military action towards Ukraine.  For what it's worth, any rumbling of possible Russian aggression seems to only come from DC and no news outlets have actually broadcast a message direct from Putin.  Soybeans traded higher for the few hours overnight before longs began to liquidate around 10 pm.  Corn was lower out of the gate and weakness continued to grow throughout the day.  Corn and soybeans were largely overbought following a big 3 1/2 weeklong rally and a large correction like today was inevitable.  We had an 8 a.m. sale announcement this morning of 101,000 tonnes of soybeans for delivery to Mexico, split approximately 50/50 between the 2021/22 and 2022/23 marketing years.  NOPA crush for the month of January was 182.216 million bushels, blow the trade estimate of 186.677 million bushels.  It's barely been a week but it seems like forever ago that we've heard any discussion on the Brazil soybean crop.  After what seemed like a race to the lowest estimate between analysts, it's very likely there is a much bigger crop in Brazil then we're being told, but we won't know for sure for another 5 months.  A Russia/Ukraine conflict has potential to be friendly for corn but if nothing develops there, it really only has ethanol and spill-over support from soybeans to support current price levels.