3/11/2024

Corn and soybeans looked weak overnight and during the early portion of the day session but corn found some buying interest while down 5 cents and rebounded to improve 1-3 cents on the day. Soybeans tried to bush pack just after 8:30am, peaking around 5 cents higher but were sold off immediately. They somewhat rebounded off of lows to end the day 1-4 cents lower. Export inspection volumes were normal for the week but soybeans fell off sharply from the previous report. Corn shipments totaled 1.122 mln tonnes which was at the top end of expectations. Soybean inspections came in around mid-range at 706k tonnes. Corn inspection pace for the marketing year now sits at a 28-million-bushel surplus, improving by 1 million bushels from last week. Soybean inspection pace now matches the pace needed to hit the USDA target. Soybean export shipments have been behind the necessary pace to hit the USDA export target for quite some time and have erased a 25-million-bushel deficit in the past 3 weeks.

On Friday, trade broke through a major down trend line and held above it into the close. We fell under that trend line again today but recovered. On several different contract months, corn is nearing the 50-day moving average. We have not traded above the 50-day moving average since early December and have not had a close above the 50-day MA since late October. I expect a fair amount of technical selling to occur if we touch it. This would create a nice test to find our closest support level for the bulls.