Corn – Friday’s COT showed funds quiet, smaller speculators may take profits on longs with that news
↓ Funds were basically quiet on Friday’s COT report, sellers of 1500, likely not what trade expected
↓ Smaller speculators likely anticipated seeing more short covering and some of those speculators may now choose to take profits on recent longs which they may have otherwise done Friday
↑ The next focus in trade will be acreage on the 28th, corn acreage is expected to be lower this year
↔ To put the recent bounce into perspective: the 38% retracement level in May corn (which represents only a small technical bounce) is at 456 ½, that tells us just how small the bounce has been so far
Beans – Funds were sellers of 11K, also a surprise to many in trade, CONAB update expected soon
↓ An even larger surprise in Friday’s COT report in beans where most traders likely expected to see some fund short covering and instead they were sellers of 11K, now a new record short of 172K
↔ Even though funds did not short cover last week they may still work to exit shorts soon but Friday’s COT report may give other traders a pause in buying along with funds for now
↔ CONAB should soon put out an updated on the crop size for BRA, expected today or tomorrow
↓↑ Acreage is expected as an increase for beans this year (some acres switching from corn) BUT with total acreage between all 3 crops expected lower, the acreage report should be supportive in general
Wheat – Stats Canada will be out with their 2024 Canadian acreage numbers at 7:30
↔ Statistics Canada will release acreage expectations for 2024 this morning with analysts expecting all wheat acreage at 26.7 million compared to 27.03 last year
↓ For those watching oats, Stats Can is expected to raise acreage from 2.5 mil last year to 3.3 mil
↓ Funds were sellers of 9K wheat, they hold a smaller position in wheat at 40% of record short but most traders likely expected to see funds as buyers instead of sellers
Cattle – Friday showed signs of possible fund selling but the COT report showed buying of 4500
↔ Friday’s PM BB was choice +0.43 Select +1.17 packer BE at 191.92, packer cushion $9.15
↑ While Friday afternoon showed at least some signs of possible fund selling, the COT report which measures through last Tuesday showed funds buyers of 4500 contracts, 7 weeks in a row of light buying
↑ BB took packer profits above $9 on Friday, the highest level since January
↑ Last week’s average cash trade is expected to be +$2 to +$3 on today’s report
↔ Choice + Select is at 605, still not quite where resistance is expected around 610