Soybeans close down 11¢. Thursday, December 21, 2023

March corn settled up 2¾¢.

January soybeans closed down 11¢.

CBOT wheat is up 2½¢. KC wheat is up 1¾¢. Minneapolis wheat is down 3¾¢.

“The migrant crisis in Mexico has caused the closure of two major railway bridges,” says the Grain Market Insider newsletter by Stewart-Peterson Inc. “This has limited the supply of corn shipped from the U.S. to Mexico, and it is estimated that they have about 2-3 weeks of supply left. It is also said that a total of about 1 million bushels of grain are being held back per day. If the issue is not quickly resolved, Mexico may turn elsewhere to secure their needs.”

Live cattle are down $1.63. Feeder cattle are down $2.35. Lean hogs are up 43¢.

Crude oil is down 49¢.

The U.S. Dollar Index March contract is down to 101.52.

“The U.S. Dollar Index is under pressure this morning and may be lending some support to the wheat market,” said Grain Market Insider at midday. “Additionally, the index is forming a bearish pennant chart pattern, which may point to more of a decline (which would be supportive for wheat).”

Published: 2:27 p.m. CST

January soybeans down 8¢: 11:15 a.m. CST

March corn is up 3¢ while January soybeans are down 8¢.

CBOT wheat is up 4½¢. KC wheat is up less than a penny. Minneapolis wheat is flat.

“Scattered rains continue to narrow areas of stress in Center-West Brazil, although forecasters think that up to a quarter of Brazil’s soybean belt may miss out on rains with the current system,” says Arlan Suderman, chief commodities economist with StoneX. “Commodity Weather Group expects 70% of Brazil’s soybean belt to receive 0.50” to 1.50”, locally 5.50”, over the next five days, with rains beyond that in the six to 10-day period. Even wetter trends continue to show up in the 11 to 15-day guidance, although the models don’t have a good track record this year of moving those rains forward.

“For perspective, consider the Midwest in mid-August waiting for rains. The stakes are high. I still believe that we’ll see production estimates trend lower going forward, but the extent of those losses will be the key to whether the market needs to ration U.S. demand with higher prices.”

This morning USDA released the weekly Export Sales report.

“Weekly export sales shouldn’t move the needle much this morning,” says The Brock Report. “USDA reported corn net sales of 1.013 [million metric tons] MMT for the 2023-2024 marketing year, down from last week but within trade guesses of 860,000 to 1.5 MMT. Soybean net export sales of 1.989 MMT were almost double last week, and in the middle of trade guesses that ranged from 1.5 to 2.5 MMT. Wheat net export sales of 322,700 metric tons were as expected down sharply from last week’s total, which was fed by [soft red winter] SRW sales to China, but they were also within trade guesses of 200,000 to 600,000.”

Live cattle are down 55¢. Feeder cattle are down 35¢. Lean hogs are up 18¢.

Crude oil is down 95¢.

S&P 500 futures are up 25 points. Dow futures are up 150 points.

Milling wheat is flat on the European MATIF trade. Corn and soybeans are down on the Dalian exchange.

Tags: live cattle, feeder cattle, lean hogs, corn, soybeans, wheat, futures