Market News

Corn up on continued rainfall: October 22, 2009

Soybeans were lower on profit taking, technical selling and some spillover from the outside markets. The dollar was higher while crude oil was lower before closing down modestly after beans settled. Losses were limited by strong weekly export sales and shipments along with wet weather delaying harvest in many areas of the Midwest. Still, nearby contracts managed to close above the psychologically important $10 mark, which is technically positive. Soybean products were mixed with meal up and oil down, essentially on the Census Bureau’s crush numbers. September’s crush totaled 113.975 million bushels with oil stocks at 2.880 billion pounds and meal stocks at 210,347 short tons.

Corn was higher on short covering and technical buying. Late fund buying was an additional feature, pushing contracts to new highs for the session just prior to the close. Corn is also keeping an eye on the rain in the forecast across most of the Midwest for the rest of this week. After a break this coming weekend, there’s even more rain and cool temperatures expected early next week. Ethanol futures were mixed mostly higher.

The wheat complex was higher on technical support, fund buying and short covering. Weekly export sales were better than expected at more than twenty three million bushels. Japan bought 91,000 tons of U.S. wheat (40,000 tons dark northern spring, 29,000 tons semi hard and 22,000 tons western white along with 21,000 tons each Australian standard white and Canadian western red spring) and Iraq issued a tender for at least 100,000 tons of hard wheat, some of which may come from the U.S. December contracts at the 3 major U.S. wheat exchanges moved back to August highs. India’s Feed Ministry is expected to approve the sale of 500,000 tons of wheat from state reserves to the public market this week.