Highlights
Yesterday morning's US retail sales were reported up 3% in January vs. expectations of 2%. Good economic news is bad news for commodity prices as the dollar index goes up… you know the drill.
Brazil’s soybean basis has weakened about 40 cents a bushel this week. That was the main reason beans were so weak yesterday. The crushers are getting enough beans to fill their storage space and now the export buyers will be able to get some beans. Thus, the extended bean export window for US beans has closed, but we sure exported a lot of old crop beans during those five to six weeks. A little more rain was added to the forecast for Argentina's crop area at mid-day, which did not help beans and corn. Hot and dry weather is still the long term forecast.
Note that Brazil’s ports usually start getting enough beans in the middle of January to load ships. That, along with the 14 day weather forecast, gives the market confidence to predict the size of the bean crop, which is normally a normal crop. Normal crops mean enough crop to keep the world from running out of that crop and the weather premium is lost within a few weeks. That is why bean prices usually take a big hit the last two weeks of January. If you are a long range planner, get your 2024 calendar, go to January 14th and write, “Soybean three week downtrend begins tomorrow.”