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Corn and soybeans performed an impressive late-session rally from this morning's lows to post in the green to end off January. This was a strong move after both the March soybeans and March corn contract made key reversals yesterday, opening lower than the prior day’s close, making new contract lows and closing above the prior day’s highs. Since January 2nd, March corn is down 15 1/2 cents, soybeans are down 51 3/4 cents, and wheat is down 11 1/2 cents.
South America news continues to be king with traders continuing to debate how much loss has occurred in Brazil, and how much damage the heat/dryness is doing in Argentina. Other than that, the market still lacks the sentiment or fundamental justification thus far to sustain a large rally with demand concerns and global tensions keeping the risk-off sentiment in effect.
The U.S. Federal Reserve left rates unchanged today as expected upon finishing their January policy meeting. The message that the Fed followed up with was that they do not expect rate cuts until they have "greater confidence" that inflation is moving to 2%, potentially pushing back expectations of the first rate cut.
Today's EIA report showed commercial crude oil stocks up 1.2 million barrels to 421.9 million, while ethanol stocks were down 1.5 million at 24.3 million barrels. Ethanol production rose 173 thousand barrels per day to 991 thousand. Ethanol production rebounded but short of pre-cold snap levels. The production of ethanol utilized an estimated 101.1 million bushels of corn in the week ending January 26, up from 83.5 million the previous week, but down from 102.4 million bushels in the same week last year. Marketing year to date estimated corn use for ethanol totals 2.200 billion bushels, up 107 million or 5.1% from the previous year's pace, and nearly 70 million bushels above the seasonal pace needed to hit USDA's target this year.
Funds were thought to have been mixed with corn neutral, beans a buyer and wheat a seller.
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