Floor Talk January 7

[marketeye]

At the close:

At the close, the March corn futures settled 1/4 of a cent lower at $3.53. March soybean futures ended 1/4 of a cent lower at $8.64. 
March wheat futures ended 5 3/4 cents higher at $4.68 1/2. January soymeal futures settled $1.30 per short ton lower at $267.40. Jan. soyoil futures closed $0.16 lower at $29.62.  
In the outside markets, the Brent Crude oil market is $0.68 lower per barrel, the U.S. dollar is lower, and the Dow Jones Industrials are 370 lower.

Mike

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At 11:45am:

On Thursday, private exporters reported to the U.S. Department of Agriculture export sales of 246,000 metric tons of soybeans for delivery to China during the 2015/2016 marketing year.

The marketing year for soybeans began Sept. 1.

Mike

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At mid-session:

At mid-session, the March corn futures are trading 2 1/2 cents lower at $3.50 3/4. March soybean futures are trading 2 cents lower at $8.62. 
March wheat futures are trading 3/4 of a cent higher at $4.63. January soymeal futures are $1.30 per short ton lower at $267.40. Jan. soyoil futures are trading $0.28 lower at $29.50.  
In the outside markets, the Brent Crude oil market is $0.28 lower per barrel, the U.S. dollar is lower, and the Dow Jones Industrials are 217 lower.

Mike North, President of Commodity Risk Management Group, says that the trade is preparing for next week’s USDA's January WASDE & quarterly stocks report.
“Analysts continue to flow in supporting the idea of large Dec 1 grain inventories.  This has kept a lid on market prices.  The catalyst to the lower trade in recent days, however, has been the ongoing turmoil in Chinese markets,” North says.  
He adds, “Their stock market has been suspended twice this week in an effort to rout panic and steep sell-offs. This has caused global liquidation of equity, energy, and other positions.  Grain markets have not been immune to these movements as evidenced in recent trade.”
As the markets have moved lower, technical points of support have held prices from steeper declines, North says.  “Violations of this support would lend to further price decay that will likely be tempered by the coming USDA release.”

Scott Shellady, TJM Investments and CME Group floor trader, says that the grain markets are getting buffeted around by the movement of capital. “Stocks, oil and gold are the movers...not a lot attention paid to the other ancillary markets. China cut rates last night and spooked everybody. You don't cut rates if you are growing at 7%. They are a big customer of the U.S. in many ways. So, if they cut, the market is looking at the move as a sign of weakness. Right now, cash is moving all over the place.”

Mike

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At the open:

At the open, the March corn futures are trading 3 1/4 cents lower at $3.50. March soybean futures are trading 4 3/4 cents lower at $8.60. 
March wheat futures are trading 5 3/4 cents lower at $4.57. January soymeal futures are $1.70 per short ton lower at $267.00. Jan. soyoil futures are trading $0.26 lower at $29.52.  
In the outside markets, the Brent Crude oil market is $0.99 lower per barrel, the U.S. dollar is lower, and the Dow Jones Industrials are 211 lower.

Mike

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At 7:30am:

USDA released Weekly Export Sales Thursday:

Wheat= 76,500 mt vs. the trade's expectations of  200,000-400,000 mt

Corn= 252,900 mt vs. the trade's expectations of  400,000-800,000 mt.

Soybeans= 638,800 mt. vs. the trade's expectations of  400,000-1,000,000 mt.

Mike

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At 7:15am:

Early calls: Corn 1-2 cents lower, soybeans 4-6 cents lower and wheat 1-2 cents lower.

Trackers:
Overnight grain, soybean markets = Trading lower.
Brent Crude Oil = $1.11 lower.
Dollar =Lower.  
Wall Street = Seen lower with oil tanking, Macy's laying off thousands, and China turmoil.

World Markets = Europe stocks were lower, Asia/Pacific stocks were lower.

More in a minute,

Mike

[luisvieira]

Mike,

Here is some surprising news. South Africa has a very significant drought, which dropped their corn production. So Brazil's corn exports jumped from zero in 2014 to over 300,000 tons in 2015. And more sales are expected to follow. Here is the full data that I posted on my own agrosouth-news.com:

Brazil has exported 321,662 tons of corn to South Africa in 2015 comparing to no previous volumes prior to the last year, according to data from the Ministry of Industry, Development and Foreign Trade. The reason for the new market is that the African country was affected by the El Niño phenomenon with significant losses of the cereal, considered the worst drought in three decades. Other three to five ships are expected to leave the coast of Brazil to the West. According to South African sources, the country will need to import at least five million tons of corn in 2015, the half of what it consumes.

What do you think?

[elcheapo]

Couple days ago market for corn was 120 over chi in south Africa, reason cited was drought.

Really sour news on wheat export #, but maybe
The french having ergot problems with Egypt
We can pick them up

[marketeye]

Does anybody have any opinion on any of this stuff? Whew, ya'll are killing me with your lurking.

Mike

[WCMO]

Deer in headlights, not sure what to think yet.  Things not looking good.  Honest information undoubtedly quite suppressed in China, difficult enough to know what to think in America.  Iran President somewhat sensible, Ayatollah is crazy old dude and wants to kill all of us.  We're beating ISIS, no we're not, no boots on the ground, we need to send troops.  Which faction of Islam should the West be siding with, if any.  Will ISIS drag us into WWIII, or are we already there and just don't know it yet.  What happens to oil prices if production is additionally disrupted in the middle-east, especially now that the US can legally export oil.  There's not enough grain to feed everyone, we're using grain for fuel instead of food, we're producing too much grain so prices have plunged.  2015 sucked on most fronts, what is there to help us think that 2016 will be better.  Are Hillary and the Donald the best candidates we have, seriously?  Would my investments be better off in a tin can in the back yard?  Would I be better off to plant nothing?  Should I buy a couple more guns while I still can?