Morning Markets: Corn: -0.75 old & -1.75 new.
Beans: +10.25 old & +3 new. Wheat: +0.25.
MARKET SUMMARY:
Good morning. Follow through buying has been the theme of the morning so far to start Thursday trade, with all three of the corn, beans, and wheat trading in the green but also trading inside of yesterday's ranges so far. Following yesterday's massive volume day, there's an uptick in activity again this morning, with more than 60,000 contracts of March beans already changing hands at this writing. Corn futures to start Thursday are trading either side of unchanged, soybean futures are trading 2-8 cents higher, and the Chicago wheat market is trading either side of unchanged also.
Crude Oil is down $1.68 at $63.46
US Dollar is up at $97.67
Dow futures are down 168 points at 49,421
WEATHER:
- Models are little changed this morning on their solutions for the minor winter storm system expected to impact the upper Midwest and parts of the northeast this weekend, with both seeing 1-2" of snowfall generally possible for the area between tonight/tomorrow morning and the end of the day on Sunday. Once this system exits though, several drier days are expected, with the models not seeing much of anything in the way of disturbances for the Midwest until the middle of next week. Cool air stubbornly lingers in the east for another few days, but models also show most all the US in a warmer-than-normal pattern by the middle of next week also.
- Good rains of a half inch to two inches fell across a wide swath of the Argentine ag belt the last 24 hours, while the models see additional rains here through the end of the week and into the first part of next week. There will be local areas that are shortchanged, but overall, the moisture likely provides desperately needed relief to some areas who have been dry for the better part of the last 15-20 days. Still nothing new for Brazil this morning, as aside from areas to the far south, regular monsoonal rains look to continue falling into at least the back half of February.
OTHER HEADLINES:
- As soybean futures popped to nearly two month highs on the heels of the China news yesterday, the rally only further brings into question the economics on importing an additional 12 MMTs of US beans, which are priced 50 cents to a dollar per bushel more than competing supplies from Brazil. At 8 MMTs, this would total more than $400 million in additional costs for Chinese buyers, which we would assume there government is going to want to recoup in some way in the form of concessions from the US.
- Spokespeople from Indonesia's energy ministry said on Wednesday that the country would be pushing back a mandatory 10% bioethanol blend in the country's gasoline supply from an originally proposed date of 2027 to now 2028. The delay comes as Indonesia in 2025 failed to meet a required 5% blend rate due insufficient ethanol supplies. Sources said the government will introduce a number of measures to help achieve the mandate, including improvements to gasoline quality, increases in infrastructure, and the diversification of feedstocks.
- Despite what was described as progress yesterday after day one of another round of US-mediated peace talks between Russia and Ukraine in Abu Dhabi, sources say ahead of the meeting's second day that there remain significant hurdles in the form of territorial boundaries that have largely been the sticking point on any sort of sort of peace talks for the better part of a year now since Trump returned to office last year.
- Following the reopening of the US government again this week, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said on Wednesday that it would be pushing the January employment report to February 11th, the December JOLTs report will now be out on February 5th, and the CPI report for January will now be out on February 13th. The compressed timeline could lead to a period of heightened volatility as traders reassess growth, labor market momentum, and inflation all at the same time. Equity markets are mostly mixed this morning, with stock index futures and metals generally in the red, while the dollar index trades higher.
- There is a bit of confusion this morning regarding planned nuclear talks between the US and Iran originally scheduled for the end of this week, as Wednesday reports that the meetings were off are now being refuted by other sources who say the talks are back on and are expected to proceed as originally scheduled in Oman. The resolution allegedly comes as the result of the heads of several Arab and Muslim countries urgently lobbying the Trump administration not to walk away from the talks. Crude oil futures are down some $1.30/bbl this morning.
EXPORT NEWS:
- This morning's weekly export sales report, with data for the week ending January 29th, is expected to show corn sales in the week between 800k-1.2 mil MTs, soybean sales between 400k-1.6 mil MTs, and wheat sales between 300k-600k MTs.
Be careful!
Bailey Runyen
Grain Originator | Topflight Grain Coop.
101 N. Main St. | Cisco, IL 61830
Phone :: 217-669-2141
Email :: brunyen@tfgrain.com
