5/3/2024

The market saw some firm follow-through buying through the overnight and early portion of the day session.  Soybeans traded up to 15 cents higher and were able to hang steady 7-9 cents higher for most of Friday and went into the weekend printing fresh highs for the move.  Corn looked to be following suit but was ready for a breather by the mid-day point.  After ticking 7-9 cents higher, July corn was back to unchanged by 11:00.  December corn held better to finish 3 cents higher.  The USDA confirmed the sale of 122,000 tonnes of soybeans for delivery to unknown in 2023/24.  The market typically assumes these are to China but many of the previous unknown have been getting assigned to Mexico, as of late.  Weekly export sales last week were modest with 759k tonnes of corn and 414k tonnes of soybeans sold.  There were virtually no new crop sales last week for exports.  It is important to note that following this week’s rally, we need to make sure we are using this opportunity to price new crop along with old crop.  It's not likely to see importers lining up to purchase U.S. grain at these levels without cause.

The market’s job is to always make either side of a trade second guess themselves and July corn picked the perfect spot at the close to do just that.  Today’s candle on the chart has a blow-offish look to it but we held fractionally above the 100-day moving average.   We tested the top side of our trend channel early today and it was met with some quick selling.  These sharp rallies are typically not sustainable.  What to look at over the weekend and early next week:  any updates on Brazil crop loss/damage from heavy rains and a fresh crop progress report from the USDA.  Planting pace is expected to slow but how much?