Highlights
The World Bank expects global economic growth to be 1.7% in 2023 and 2.7% in 2024 with the Russian economy to contract by 3.3% in 2023 and expand 1.6% in 2024.
Goldman Sachs, on the other hand, said the US economy may avoid a recession entirely. They are a lone wolf among Wall Street firms and economic think tanks. For those of you who have been with us for a while, know we have been saying the same thing for several months. Goldman goes so far to say the EU may also dodge the recession bullet. Goldman cites the crash of natural gas prices in Europe, China’s 180° turn on Covid restrictions and they see inflation easing sooner than they previously expected.
Tidbits
Benson-Quinn’s J.R. Edmondson on the wheat Tuesday morning:
"Wheat traders are beginning to realize that the acreage expectations for Thursday's USDA report might be way too low. Some areas in the SRW growing areas are reporting a considerable increase in planted acres, as the wheat/bean double crop rotation penciled out quite nicely when wheat was planted in October ($9 futures). If the selling trend persists through today and tomorrow, I have half a mind to believe that it could be mostly priced in. In some instances, it feels like North America might be getting a little cheap compared to other world wheat prices."
There are quite a few locations in Kansas, Texas, and Oklahoma where HRW is cheaper than corn. Likewise, there are locations in the Southeast chicken and hog feed market where SRW is cheaper than corn as well. Wheat for feed, especially in the Southeast, will become very common very quickly. The limiting factor is no more than 20% of a ration can be wheat because animals stand at the feeder chewing gluten instead of ingesting more nutrition. The USDA currently projects 50 million bushels of wheat will be fed this marketing year. Right now, that number is more likely to be 100+ million bushels larger, or about 17% of the US wheat carryover.
Purdue’s Ag Econ experts are looking ahead to what the agricultural sector can expect for 2023:
"In 2023, our experts are assessing the possibility of a recession, impacts from the ongoing war as well as expectations for input costs and food prices."
You can access the report at:
The latest ENSO update:
To Learn All About ENSO, La Niña, El Niño, go to:
Soybean Meal Put Strategy
Any way one wants to measure the soybean meal fundamentals, the price of it is ridiculously too high. How can meal be so high priced with all the doom and gloom talk?
Soybeans have little value until the oil is removed from the meal. A bushel of beans will produce about 11½ pounds of oil and about 48 pounds of meal. In dry years, the oil content is higher and in wet years, the oil content will be lower. The value of those two products minus the cost of the crush process = the value of the soybeans (value is usually different from the price!).
Usually, the value of the meal moves the opposite direction of the oil because spec traders usually sell one and buy the other. If bean oil is in an uptrend, meal will be in a downtrend.
Bean oil has been in a downtrend since June 8th. Meal has been in an uptrend since July 7th. Bean meal made its recent high on December 9th; bean oil made its recent low December 12th. The last Commitment of Traders Report (COT) showed the big specs bought 19 contracts of meal for every contract of bean oil they bought. During that reporting week, bean oil was down 3.16 cents a pound and meal was up $17.30 a ton. Do you get the picture?
Spread traders buy a given futures contract and sell a different futures contract. When spread traders see a reason to sell bean oil or meal, they will sell it and buy the other. They trade by the rule, The trend is your friend. As long as they are making money, they will keep buying one and selling the other. The result is one of the commodities will be in a long-term (and unjustified) uptrend (or downtrend) only because the other “leg” of the spread justifies selling (or buying).
The gloom and doom economic outlook has traders thinking the demand for biofuels and overall demand for vegetable oil will be greatly diminished, so the spec traders are selling the bean oil and buying the meal only to be spread, which reduces market risk, more efficient use of margin money (roughly two positions for the same margin as one position), and it makes money.
So, bean meal is way overpriced because of spread traders. There is a day coming when those spread traders will liquidate that spread and go the other way. They will be selling meal to liquidate their long (buy) leg of their spread and then selling meal again to establish a short (sell) bean meal leg. When that reversal of position happens, it will be an amazing ride!
The problem is we do not know when the spread traders will reverse their position. It might be this week or it might be any of the next 4 to 5 months. Meal prices may go another $100+ higher. If so, a short futures position will lose $100 a ton on 100 short (2,000 lbs) tons. A purchased put will lose no more than what was paid for it, and yet, when the meal market turns lower, the put will increase in value as the futures price declines. No matter how high bean meal goes, that put will maintain its potential to increase in value if meal futures price turns lower before the expiration of the option.
For a simplified explanation of how a purchased put option works for the buyer, go to www.wrightonthemarket.com/post/how-to-use-put-options-simplified-version
Market Data
This morning:
Crude oil is at $75.30, up $0.18
The dollar index is at 103.42, up 0.18
July palm oil is at 3,910 MYR, down 77. The contract high was made September, 1st at 4,365 MYR. Palm oil owns 36% and soybean oil owns 28% world market share.
July cotton is at $84.50, down $0.26 per cwt. The contract high was made September, 1st at $101.64 per cwt. Cotton competes with soybeans and corn for acres.
July natural gas is at $3.616, up 0.015. The contract high was made September, 6th at $5.938. Natural gas is the primary cost to manufacture nitrogen fertilizer.
July ULSD is at $2.7033 per gallon, down 0.0288. The contract high was made November, 4th at $3.1450. ULSD stands for Ultra Low Sulfur Diesel.
March Dow Futures is at 33,851, up 2. The lifetime high is 36,832 on January 5th, 2022.
Rain Days Update
The 6 to 10 day forecast updated every day at: https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/predictions/610day/
Explanation of Rain Days