Highlights
Weekly Basis Report will be delayed until Sunday.
Yesterday morning the USDA reported the sale of: 144,907 mt of new crop corn to Costa Rica 105,664 mt of old crop to unknown
Considering crude oil lost $8 yesterday and some showers were added midday to the Indiana and Central Illinois forecast, corn and beans held in there pretty well. Not so with wheat, but then crude oil has almost nothing to do with wheat. Wheat should have been down more than the 40+ cents it was.
We are shocked how many experienced grain people are totally baffled that wheat was down 40+ cents yesterday.
This weekend is the first major wheat harvest weekend of the year and it is a three day weekend. Merchandisers were hedging (selling futures) to cover all the wheat they expect to buy this weekend until the market opens Monday evening. It is called "pre-hedging".
Most of France will have temperatures today near 100 degrees F (38 C) today. Their wheat is rated 65% good to excellent, down just 1% for the week. Heat will hasten harvest pressure on the futures and basis.
First half June wheat and corn exports from June were much larger than the market expected. Ukraine’s grain exports were down 43.5% from last year for the first half of June with 623,000 mts of corn shipped, 48,000 mt of wheat and 21,000 mts of barley. The media would have us believe Ukraine exports were down 90% from a year ago.
Although the media has most people convinced we have only a ten week supply of wheat, we have nearly twice that much and always have had that much for the past several years.
The dollar index was up more than one full point yesterday, which is always a big negative for wheat.
US wheat exports are poor.
This coming week is all weather. Do not be selling on a down day as long the forecast is hot and dry, which continues at least 10 more days.
Market Data
This morning:
Crude oil settled at $110.48, down $7.11
The dollar index settled at 104.65, up 1.02
July palm oil settled at 5,679 MYR, down 4. The contract high was made April, 29th at 7,229 MYR. Palm oil owns 36% and soybean oil owns 28% world market share.
December cotton settled at $118.29, down $0.94 per cwt. The contract high was made May, 17th at $133.79 per cwt. Cotton competes with soybeans and corn for acres.
July natural gas settled at $6.944, down 0.520. The contract high was made June, 8th at $9.664. Natural gas is the primary cost to manufacture nitrogen fertilizer.
July ULSD settled at $4.3398 per gallon, down 0.2315. The contract high was made June, 17th at $4.6444. ULSD stands for Ultra Low Sulfur Diesel.
Rain Days Update
The Western Corn Belt has 5 less rain days in the 10 day forecast than yesterday and the Eastern Corn Belt has 1 more rain daysthan yesterday.
The 6 to 10 day forecast updated every day at: https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/predictions/610day/
Explanation of Rain Days