Market News

Soybeans, corn up ahead of Thanksgiving

 

Soybeans were higher on commercial and technical buying. The trade’s watching the tail end of harvest, expecting most areas to wrap up by the weekend. The USDA’s final 2017 production totals for beans and corn are out in January. Forecasts for parts of Argentina and southern Brazil are drier, possibly because of the current weak La Nina pattern. Conditions in most of the rest of Brazil look good. Still, with the uncertainties, DTN FOB prices at Brazil’s ports hit a more than three month high. Soybean meal was higher, hitting a new one month high, and bean oil was lower on commercial spread activity. Weekly export sales are pushed back until Friday by the holiday.

Corn was fractionally higher on commercial and technical buying. Corn’s also watching U.S. harvest activity and expecting good progress, and keeping an eye the planting and development conditions in South America. Planting of Brazil’s first corn crop remains slower than average, but that should catch up with soybean planting back to normal. New USDA baseline 10 year supply and demand numbers are out next Tuesday and the next monthly set of supply, demand, and production numbers is out December 11th. Ethanol futures were higher. Weekly production last week was a new all-time high at 1.074 million barrels a day and stocks jumped 400,000 barrels to 21.897 million.

The wheat complex was mostly modestly higher. Dry weather in the southern Plains may not be seen as an issue for hard red winter until spring and recent rain in the eastern Midwest will help as the soft red winter crop heads towards dormancy. Acreage totals will remain a mystery until the USDA numbers in January. The overall fundamental outlook remains bearish, but there’s commercial support at these prices. The first notice day for December futures is next week. Tunisia bought 100,000 tons of optional origin milling wheat. Markets are closed Thursday for Thanksgiving, re-opening Friday morning, with an early close to end the week.