2/25/2022

A wild week in the markets came to a close with corn near limit lower and beans ranging from 30-70 cents lower.  Overnight trade made a valiant effort at a run higher after ending Thursday well off of the highs.  Trade quickly turned negative and a broad sell-off was triggered across most commodities, virtually eliminating any kind of a war risk premium that we had added earlier in the week.  Weekly net export sales were slightly better than trade expected with 1.041 mln tonnes of corn, 1.233 mln tonnes of soybeans, and 517k tonnes of wheat sold last week.  The USDA announced soybean sales of 334,000 tonnes tonnes to China for 2022/23 and 285,000 tonnes to unknown split between the 2021/22 and 2022/23 marketing years.  Historically, live military activity has been a good indicator of a market cycle change.  A lot of money has come out of stocks and equities and been pumped into commodities the first two months of this year, we may be seeing the start of a new trend.  If corn and soybean futures reverse trend lower, it would line up rather well with seasonal trends, as well.  A huge down day like this does not necessarily mean our highs are in for the year but there are no guarantees in the market and anything can happen.  The world is now focusing more attention to China and what they do with Taiwan.  China taking military action on the small island nation could provoke economic sanctions from the U.S., essentially bringing a halt to corn and soybean exports.  Weekly cash closes in Murdock: cash corn 2 cents lower, new crop corn 23 cents lower, cash soybeans 19 down cents, and new crop soybeans down 48 cents.