Today’s Prices

Grain markets finishing higher today, most of the support in the grain coming from a big positive reversal in many of the outside markets.

Grain Market News

Ukraine

8 years ago, Crimea was part of Ukraine, Russia invaded taking it over, and Russia says they annexed it.

Russia is now doing the same thing in eastern and southern Ukraine. 4 areas where Russia had the referendum votes Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizka, and Kherson.

Russia will now go through the process within their government of fully annexing this property of Russia and stating it’s their own domestic territory.

Grain Market News

Weekly Ethanol Production

You can see the sharp drop in ethanol production, normally about this time of year we start to ramp of production.

We do believe production ramp up through October-December.

Weekly Stocks of Fuel Ethanol

Ethanol stocks increased to 22.69 million barrels.

Stocks are well above the year ago level despite the fact that gasoline consumption is running about 4% below the year ago level.

We clearly have some negative news from the ethanol industry today.

As harvest ramps up and new crop works its way into the pipeline, we believe ethanol production will increase.

Ethanol Profit Margin- Iowa Prices

A year ago, we had very profitable ethanol production and hit record high levels.

Due to declining ethanol prices and higher corn ethanol margins have been negative until just this week when ethanol margins are about breaking even due to the fact that some corn from new corn harvest is becoming available.

Grain Market News

U.S. Temperatures

You can see southern Minnesota and northern Iowa saw temperature this morning in the upper 20s and low 30s.

Certainly, some scattered frost and some isolated freezing temperatures.

7-Day Observed Precipitation

30-Day Precipitation

The past 7 days we have had very little rain in the heart of the belt.

The exception would be some better rains in the Great Lakes and last week when we had some rain in southern Nebraska and parts of Kansas.

Over the last 30 days we have had very dry conditions across the northern and northwestern belt as well as the southwestern belt into southern plains.

Areas that are an exception are some good rains in portions of the central plains and then the eastern belt has been in good shape as well

The dry weather will certainly help advance the harvest but many crops in the Wester belt are going into harvest with having very little moisture for the final filling stages.

7-Day Precipitation Forecast

The forecast is completely dry for the heart of the belt for the next 7 days and could last as much as 10-14 days.

When it comes to harvest progress and drying down crops this is great news but when it comes to drought conditions and areas where crops could use some rain to finish filling there is no rain.

The southern plains hard red wheat planting is going on in dry conditions.  

Mississippi

Very low water levels and the levels are expected to decline gradually but consistently over the next 2 weeks.

This could cause additional draft restrictions for barges down the road.

December Corn Chart

Corn prices pushed just slightly below trend line support this morning, but we turned around and closed higher.

This level, as we mentioned yesterday, does need to hold.

If it doesn’t hold it could open another 20-30 cents of downside risks going into harvest.

The short-term trend has turned downward, technical indicators also pointed downward.

November Soybean Chart

Soybeans did break through chart support this morning and turned around closing at 14.08.

That was 16 cents off the daily low.

The chart still has a negative look and the technical is still pointed downward as well.

The market did bounce back and closed slightly higher and technical indicators are approaching the oversold level.

If we don’t get some bullish news and bounce back quickly, we do risk price working into those lows between 13.50-13.75.

December KC Wheat Chart

Wheat prices did bounce off chart support very nicely, a big up day in the wheat market.
The overall U shape bottom is still intact, we believe the market is likely going to target the $10, maybe the 10.10 range.
From there we will see if there is enough bullish news to keep the market going.

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