Mid day 6.26.2012 from Country Hedging's Chris Steinhoff

Risk on or risk off…which is it today? Crude oil is down 60 cents…Gold is down $18.00. silver is down 7 cents so today would be a poor day to pawn your bling bling…DJIA is 40 points lower…

Corn---In modest fund buying volume, we are firm as it is still dry and hot but some say the GFS model is becoming slightly wetter, so we’ll have to see what the noon updates do…Weather is what it is about as crop conditions decline in the ECB and the WCB looks mostly OK for now. But a lot depends on whom is looking as one can say the crop is “burning up” and the next will not see that…Hearing some ethanol plants looking at taking down time earlier than they had originally planned, so is this the beginning of demand destruction? We’ll know for sure when the end user is a seller of more corn than they are buyers. National news really hasn’t picked up on this story too much yet. WCB farmer has been an actively engaged seller of new crop but have slowed selling of old crop as basis slides weaker. I keep hearing stories of more corn in the WCB farm bins than the farmer is telling anyone, so Friday’s June 1 stock report could be interesting,..garbage in garbage out…Old crop spreads are weaker on weaker cash markets, new crop spreads are firm on production worries…May be a good year of testing today’s genetics, but 5-7 weeks without rain can’t be good.

Soybeans---choppy two-sided and now weaker as beans allow it to be a corn story today. Beans still have time to recover with some rain. Many traders expecting a decent increase in bean acres, but dryness in the ECB may be slowing the increase of the double crop beans…china and world export news is quiet. World economy also a negative impact on the soy complex. Spreads vs old crop are firm as farmer movement is very very slow. X/F is a 1 ½ inverse. Other news is quiet.

Wheat---MGEx leads the way because? Why? Crop problems? NO, demand? NO,  Farm bins are empty? NO…HRW and SRW harvest expands amidst the heat and yields are better than thought as the crop is too early and  just didn’t have enough time to get “burnt” up by the weather. KC and CME are slightly lower as all three Dec contracts have rallied almost $1.00 is about a week. Selling is steady but slow from the farmgate. Farmers seem more concerned about the few new crop bushels they have sold than selling what they do not have sold yet.

Mid day models are sshowing rain across IA into N ILL into IN…se below

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Christopher Steinhoff
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