2/28/2024

Corn climbs higher for the third consecutive day and soybeans put up modest gains of 4-5 cents on Wednesday.  Corn was setting fresh intraday highs going into the close while soybeans peaked around mid-day.  There were no big changes fundamentally for grains and this week's move has been motivated more by money-flow.  After going to a record large net short position, the managed money crowd appears to be taking some profit for the month end timeframe.  We saw a similar pattern in the final days of January but there seems to be more of a buzz surrounding this week's market and possibly some traders coming off the sidelines and getting involved.  Trade volume has improved recently after many sat idle since the beginning of the year, not allowing themselves to be a victim of the managed money shorting.  Weekly ethanol production was down 5,000 barrels/day to 1.078 mln bpd.  Ethanol stocks grew 500,000 barrels to 26.0 mln bbls.

May corn moved seamlessly through its 10-day moving average, closing above it.  The obvious next point of resistance is our 20-day moving average at 437, assuming we can continue to hold above the 10-day.