Winter Wheat Planting Picks Up

Corn – Brief fund activity, not seeing aggressive harvest pressure quite yet, Dec gravitates to 410

↔Yesterday showed signs of fund buying for 3 minutes, clearly slowed compared to the last 3 weeks

↔Harvest pressure is still likely but not in full swing yet, for now it’s impact is minimal, like funds

↔Given no fresh news Dec continues to gravitate to 410, the last 2 weeks show 5 different highs of the day at 415 so we have a solid idea where to expect more resistance

↔More rain was added to the 6 – 10 day map, may slow harvest slightly but with how dry many areas have been, not likely to delay combines for long, corn harvest progress yesterday was 9%

Beans – Crush quite disappointing, may cause Nov to gravitate to $10 instead of just above $10

↓ Yesterday’s crush was very disappointing coming in at 158 mil bu when trade expected 171.3 mil bu

↓ This crush report now suggests the USDA estimate for crush may be 11 mil bu too high, that in turn means the last carryout of 0.550 was too low, adding 11 mil bu to carryout suggests price closer to $10

↔Harvest pace was reported at 6%, both corn/bean harvest pace is slightly ahead of the 5 year ave

↔We continue to see regular 8 AM announcements but keep in mind that is normal for this time of year, for demand support we need to see Thursday’s weekly totals above average

Wheat – HRW planting at 14%, 1% ahead of average, likely that trade expected a higher number

↑ HRW planting at 14% was just ahead of average but yesterday’s selling showed that traders were expecting it to be much faster, at 14% we may find small disappointment buying

↔Rains were increased in the 6 – 10 day for HRW areas, a solid forecast for newly planted wheat

↔Focus should now turn to seeing what we get for Thursday’s export report, last week strong at 475K

Cattle – BB makes another move to 4 month lows, showlist +11K, futures sit at $1.50 under cash

↓ Yesterday’s PM BB was choice -0.34 select -2.03 packer BE at 189.46, packer cushion $8.80

↓ BB is still trending lower and making new 4 month lows almost every day, there is no way around it that this means a slow grind lower for cash/futures if it continues

↔Packer profits near $9 means that for this week there still is a chance at a higher cash trade

↔Even if a higher cash trade is seen futures may hardly react at all, few speculators want to be buyers on this week’s cash news if BB suggests they will end up giving back gains next week

↔Lower BB does not suggest new panic selling is needed but a grind lower is certainly possible