To zoom in on a phone, tablet, or touch screen, place two fingers on screen and move them apart. To zoom out pinch fingers together.

Today’s Prices

Grain markets finished mixed today with crude oil being lower today putting pressure on the market, but the ongoing war in Ukraine continues to provide a question mark regarding global supply.

Grain Market News

Crude Oil

Last week just a week and a day ago crude oil hit a $130 per barrel, today down to $93 per barrel. That’s a $37 per barrel drop in just 7 days.

In fact, at today’s low, crude oil prices had given back all the rallies due to the Russia invasion in Ukraine.

This is just one example of how the extreme volatility is going to be in place in not only crude oil but many of our markets and this crude oil chart is just one example of how substantial these chart moves are going to be in the weeks and months to come.

Unleaded Gasoline

Prices have virtually erased all of the rallies due to the Russian invasion in Ukraine and gasoline prices have fallen a $1.01 per gallon in just 7 trading days, that’s a drop of 25%.

The massive drop in crude oil and gasoline over the last 7 trading session has put a little bit of a negative tone into the corn market here recently.

Grain Market News

NOPA Soybean Crush

Today’s NOPA soybean crush, that’s the National Oilseed Processes Association, and those members account for about 95% of the US soybean crush.

That crush came in at a very large 165 million bushel, and when we look at this chart the yellow bars have been below the green bars 3 of the past 4 months.

 Indicating that this year’s crush has been running a little below last year’s record crush. The only exception back in December

But last year’s crush was reduced significantly by extremely tight supplies and extremely high prices. The February crush came in way above the year ago crush and we expect that could very well continue in the months to come.

Although our year-to-date crush is virtually right on the year ago level, crush going forward over the next 6 months will be well above the year ago.

USDA’s estimate that final crush will be up 3.5% looks to be a good estimate and we wouldn’t be surprised to see US crush exceed USDA’s estimate due to the lack of supply availability out of Argentina going forward.

Soybean Crush Margin

Another item that would support very strong crush going forward, not only the export of product but the fact that soybean crush margins.

Nearby crush margin added $2.17, we are sitting at near record large crush margin and even though soybeans are above the $16 mark and approaching $17 at times, very strong product prices for oil are allowing soybean crush margins to remain at near record levels.

In fact, this is a board crush margin, and we are hearing that cash crush margins are remaining around the $3 per bushel level and therefore there is no incentive to slow down crush.

In fact, there is all the reasons to continue to crush as aggressively as possible.

Monthly Global Corn Trade

Our forecast for continuing strong US demand is not just based on our domestic demand but also strong global demand.

This chart shows the monthly global corn trade, the red line has been above the previous two years the last 4 months indicating that global demand for corn is strong as the world continues to try to come out of the global pandemic.

World Feed Grain Prices

In this chart US prices are shown on the red line and currently we are below the blue line Brazilian corn and the black line which is European feed wheat.

Currently supplies are not readily available out of Argentina and very little corn is coming out of Ukraine just some going into Europe.

Not only is global demand strong but US prices are cheap now and continue to appear to be the cheapest in the world going into the month of May.

Again, more evidence that US demand is going to remain very strong.

Fund Position: C/B/W Combined

This chart shows the fund positions, this is for the managed money fund, and this includes corn, soybeans, and Chicago wheat combined.

The blue line is the commodity or managed money fund, and you can see their position after this week was 560 contracts long and that’s very close to a record long.

Its certainly one of the longest positions going back the last 10 years but with inflation at a 40 year high there seems to be a strong interest in investment funds wanting to own commodities as the hedge against inflation. You can see that with the fund position reaching close to a record long.

In addition, the long only funds are long 517 thousand, that’s nowhere near the long that we saw back in 2008 and again in 2009-2010 but its significantly above where we were looking at for a managed money or long only fund position going back a couple years.

The bottom line is that the long only funds and the managed money funds are sitting on large, long positions and there does not appear to be an incentive for them to reduce those positions, at least not at this time.

March Corn Chart

Corn prices have been chopping sideways range for about a week and half now. The markets rallied sharply on the Russia invasion of Ukraine and now we pull back and are chopping at a sideways range close to the recent highs, so corn prices have pulled back just a little bit.

Prices worked there way close to the $7 mark today on the July chart, but we did turn around and close at 7.23.

Sharply lower prices earlier today followed by a rebound. Bottom line is that corn prices remain stuck fairly close to the middle of our recent range.

While the chart chopped in a narrow range and somewhat of a sideways range for a week and a half, technical indicators also chopped sideways indicating no strong trend at least over the past week and a half.

March Soybean Chart

Soybean prices were down sharply early today, they recovered somewhat close to mid-range. But still somewhat of a disappointing chart formation for soybeans.

Technical indicators chopping sideways but trying to turn just a little bit lower based on the decline the last couple of days.

The overall trend in soybeans is still an uptrend but in the short term the market is showing signs that this market might be looking at a further correction down into the $16 range.

We closed at $16.35 today.

March KC Wheat Chart

Some are asking why wheat was so strong today, part of the reason may be the fact that over about a 3–4-day period wheat had fallen $2.32, that is a tremendous drop in a short period of time and now wheat is bouncing back.

We discussed how our wheat markets could remain extremely volatile in the near term. We are going to use strong rallies as an opportunity to sell and strong breaks may be opportunities for end user buying.

But right now, todays close at 11.43 a $1.16 off the recent high and a $1.16 off the recent low, so today prices right in the middle of the range that’s been established over the last week or so.

Questions or Comments

To return to the previous page on your mobile device, click the back arrow in the bottom tool bar.