Corn – Funds cover 41K shorts, may bring back smaller speculative buying as well
↑ Friday’s COT report showed funds covering 41K shorts, now short 256K or 75% of record
↑ Seeing that funds were back to short covering could mean smaller speculators also return with buying
who would be getting in on longs looking to take profits from more fund short covering
↑ Some pre buying of the acreage report next week is also possible, including funds ahead of the 28th
↓ A 3 month downtrend line in May has acted as resistance lately which today crosses at 442 ½
Beans – Funds cover 17K shorts, crush strong from Friday, acres expected +2.232 million
↑ Friday’s COT report showed funds covering 17K shorts, now short 155K or 90% of record
↑ Friday’s crush report was above even the highest estimate at 186.2 million bushels
↔ Acreage is expected to be +2.232 million next week, while support is still expected due to total
acreage for all 3 crops being lower, beans may see the least pre buying of next week’s report
↔ Immediately following the acreage report attention will turn to weather and soil moisture conditions
Wheat – US wheat still following overseas daily, overseas wheat higher last night
↑ Overseas wheat trade was higher and is just short of taking out highs seen on the bounce last week
↓ Funds were sellers of 13K, wheat being the only market where funds added to shorts now short 79K
↔ Wheat should also turn attention to weather conditions immediately following the acreage report
and that could also be the time overseas moves start having a reduced effect on US price
Cattle – Choppy/cautious trade continues, BB still grinding higher, weights up again having an impact
↔ Friday’s PM BB was choice +1.12 Select +0.71 packer BE at 195.04, packer cushion $10.37
↑ BB continues to grind higher taking packer profits above $10 for the first time since January
↓ Cattle weights up another 5 pounds last week is starting to have a sizable impact, of the 3.5% smaller
beef production due to low cattle numbers, 2.2% of that is now being offset with added weights
↓ Recent slaughter has continued to slow so we can expect weights even higher on this week’s report
↔ Futures trade has seen more choppy/cautious moves lately which makes sense now that we need to
factor in this weight data, it is not as simple as saying “cattle numbers are down” anymore
↑ Funds were light buyers of 4K on Friday’s COT report, a 8
th week in a row of slow buying from them