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Wheat dragged the grain complex down today. Fundamental data continues to be light.
Marketing has been very gloom and doom lately, so I wanted to switch gears with today's commentary and include some graphs that show prices for both old crop and new crop futures compared to years past. As you can see on the graphs below for new crop, there are a a lot of lines under where we are today. 3, 5 and 10 year averages can make the prices look even worse as even the averages are inflated from the 2022 Ukraine/Russian Spike. Correlation does not equal causation, but do you notice any seasonal trends on the chart?
For the old crop prices, I included graphs that look a bit different on a histogram to show where we are price percentage wise. We are now in the 3rd month of 2024. Do you have any new crop sold? Are you still sitting on much old crop? What is your plan if we rally? What is your plan if we don't? In a year like this with fading prices, to stay profitable make a plan and stay on top of it. Is there a seasonal blip you want to get ahead of? What is your cost of production? Spring is right around the corner and if you push all of your marketing decisions off until month 5 or 6 of the year, you may miss some valuable selling opportunities. Please let us know if you would like to sit down to make a marketing plan. Are you interested in other graphs that might help influence your marketing decisions? Reach out to us and we can see what information we can gather for you!
European Commission data showed cumulative soft wheat exports since July 1 at 21.0 MMT, down from 21.38 MMT last year, with corn imports at 11.94 MMT (down from 19.99 MMT LY, still chiefly from Ukraine and Brazil) and soybean imports at 7.9 MMT (vs 8.0 MMT LY).
Monday’s Statistics Canada planting intentions report is expected to show all Canadian wheat plantings for 2024 at 26.7 million acres, down from 27.0 mln ac in 2023, with spring wheat at 19.3 mln vs 19.5 mln ac last year. Canola seedings are seen at 21.6 mln ac, down from 22.1 mln in 2023, with corn at 3.7 mln ac (vs 3.8 mln ac LY) and soybeans at 5.6 mln ac (even with 2023).
U.S. carryouts are seen fairly stagnant ahead of Friday's March USDA S&D Report; the major moves are seen coming in the form of expected BRZ production cuts, 2-4 MMT for both corn and soy. No real changes expected for Argentina's crops in this report, but either way, output will be way up on the year.
Funds were thought to have been all sellers today.
Floyd and I will both be out of the office tomorrow so there will be no commentaries.
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