Opening Grain Market Comments 4-17-12 - Turnaround Tuesday in store for the commodities?

Markets are called mixed to better behind a mixed but mainly firmer overnight session and supportive outside markets.

Nearby corn was off a penny while deferred corn markets where unchanged, beans were up 5-7 cents, KC wheat was up a couple, MPLS wheat was up 2, and CBOT wheat was up 2-3 cents.  At 8:55 outside markets have equities firmer with the DOW up 94 points, crude is up about 1.50, gold off about 10.00 an ounce, the dollar is about unchanged, and European wheat is up about 1 %.

The USDA had electronically issues (fire I believe) that delayed crop progress and conditions; they are now expected to be out this afternoon at the normal 3:00 time. 

Export inspections or shipments were delayed yesterday but did come out after the markets closed.  Wheat came in at 25.7 million bushels which is about 10 million bushels more then we need on a per week basis to meet current USDA projections.  Corn also came in very strong at 42.9 million bushels well above the 33 million bushels we need on a per week basis to meet current projections.  Beans came in at their lowest level since late Sept/Early Oct; but at 18.1 million bushels they are still well ahead of the 11.5 that they need on a per week basis to meet projections.  All in all rather good export performance for our grains with the corn and wheat numbers sticking out a little bit on the bar charts while beans show a clear slow down trend over the past several months.

Ideas for this afternoon’s crop report are around 15-20 % corn planted. 

Look to see if our markets can have a turnaround Tuesday; cash markets remain strong for corn and beans while weather has been more ideal.  If we continue to see ideal weather there could be more room to the downside; but I have to personally think we could and should see some sort of weather scares as we move forward.

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