Today’s Prices

Grain markets finished mixed today with corn and soybeans lower on mostly favorable South American weather.

Grain Market News

South American Precipitation Forecast

Very good rain fell across Brazil this past weekend and Argentina had some rain as well.

Looking ahead, Brazil’s forecast shows 1-2 inches rain and isolated 3-4 inches with the exception of the far southern regions.

Week 2 shows even better rains in the central and north but again the far southern regions could miss out.

In Argentina following some rains over the weekend .5-1.5 with isolated heavier.

This week and next week are looking dry again.

Soil Moisture Change

We can see on the change map going forward to the next week, central and northern Brazil looks good.

But southern Brazil and Argentina will be drying out.

Temperature Anomaly

Brazil looks good temperature wise, some areas a little below and some a little above.

Argentina as they start to dry out again could get warm.

Vegetation Health vs. Last Year

Vegetation health compared to a year ago shows that southern Brazil and central Brazil is better than a year ago while far northern Brazil may be worse.

Argentina for the most part has vegetation health below the year ago levels.

Sea Surface Levels

This is the third year in a row where we have entered the South American growing season with El Nino.

That is below normal conditions.

El Nino resulted in severe drought late in the growing season that affected the Safrinha corn crop 2 years ago and then central, southern Brazil and Argentina had droughts that impacted crop last year.

Going into this growing season there were concerns that another year of La Nina condition could cause crop problems.

The La Nina conditions are expected to max out here in November and start to improve.

Grain Market News

Corn: Weekly Export Inspections

Corn inspections were up from last week to 19.054 million bushels, but that’s still the lowest total for this week over the last 6 years.

 This is still well below last year’s level and the level needed.

Soybean: Weekly Export Inspections

Soybeans dropped sharply from last week at 68 million bushels.

This is well below where we were last year at this time.

The only good news is we are still well above the total needed to reach USDA forecast.

Year to date exports is down 11.6% from last year, USDA is projecting exports will be down 5.2%.

Wheat: Weekly Export Inspections

A marketing year low in wheat and the lowest number we’ve seen on over 6 years at just 2.8 million bushels.

That’s well below the 14 million bushels that’s needed weekly to reach the USDA forecast.

December Corn Chart

Corn prices are down at the lower end of the trading range from back in August.

Prices have been chopping back and forth near the low end of the range with technical indicators near 0.

We are not overly bullish but this not the place to be making a sale.

We wouldn’t be surprised to see a bounce back up in the 6.75-6.80 range over the next few weeks.

November Soybean Chart

Soybean prices are near the upper end of their trading range.

The charts are in a pennant formation where progressively lower highs and progressively higher lows appear.

December KC Wheat Chart

Wheat prices were also in a narrow range, mostly chopping sideways over the last month.

We carved out a range between 9.15-9.91 and anything within this range would be fair game.

Questions or Comments