Today’s Prices

Grain markets finished mixed today, weather is still lightly supportive.

Grain Market News

30-Day Precipitation – % of Normal

The majority of the belt has seen below normal precipitation.

Portions of southern southwest Minnesota are an area that had heavier rains as well as some isolated areas.

Soil Moisture

You can see that the western belt is well below normal with soil moisture and now the eastern belt is starting to develop below normal soil moisture.

7-Day Precipitation Forecast

Unfortunately, there is not much precipitation in the forecast.

From central Iowa, Missouri, through the Delta, into the eastern belt including all of Illinois, Indiana, Ohio is not expecting any rain over the next week.

Outlook

This shows above normal temperatures for almost the entire U.S. corn and bean belt with cooler temperatures in the far southwestern plains.

This is not overly concerning but if this pattern would continue into June, then it would become a concern.

Soil Moisture

The dry forecast shows up in the National Weather service.

You can see virtually the entire belt is expecting moisture to decline.

The forecast is slightly threatening.

Grain Market News

Weekly Ethanol Production

Weekly production does show a very small decline from last week down to 983 thousand barrels per day.

Our year-to-date ethanol production is down 2.6%, USDA is estimating down 1.5%.

Weekly Stocks of Fuel Ethanol

Stocks dropped sharply down to 22.031 million barrels.

Not only is that down significantly from where we were at in late March, but we are also 7.1% below last year’s stock level.

Unleaded Gasoline

Ethanol Swaps

Ethanol Profit Margins

May Corn Chart

Corn made another new high, this chart looks good at this time.

We broke through the 10-day moving average and today we broke through the 20-day moving average.,

Technical indicators look good as well.

Weather will still be the primary driver for prices.

We are still looking at an area between 5.47-.5.37 as a potential target in the near term.

May Soybean Chart

The soybean chart does not look nearly as impressive as the corn chart.

But they still look to be building a base.

Soybeans are challenging overhead resistance, but we have not yet seen a clean breakout to the upside.

If the weather remains somewhat threatening, soybeans could see a bounce.

Overhead resistance at 12.47.

May KC Wheat Chart

Wheat prices have been extremely volatile with KC wheat averaging over a 30-cent daily trading range.

Yesterday’s prices moved up sharply and today’s prices moved down sharply.

Overall, the wheat market continues to be very choppy in the middle of the range that’s been in place back to last November.

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