Thursday, July 1, 2010

Corn: A one day Wonder?

It seems like only yesterday [it was -ed] that we posted "Surprising Corn Numbers"" with the futures at 348.25.
Today the futures are down a penny at 372.50. As you can see, there was some action in the interim.
Here's more from DTN's Market Matters blog (they talk cash prices rather than futures):

Cash Corn, Wheat Bids Bump Up
Was it a one-day wonder? or will farmers be able to find some higher bids for corn and wheat if they wait until later to get some grain to town -- that's the question for the morning after a near-limit-up move on the board boosted the DTN cash corn index 29 cents and the SRW wheat index by 20 cents.

At $3.24, the corn index looks a lot better than it did at $2.95, but how appealing that might be in the bigger picture may be the issue for producers who need closer to $4 to cover last fall's dryer bills.
Wednesday's other surprise was in wheat, where news from the reports of even bigger acreage and more burdensome ending stocks failed to keep prices from moving higher. The DTN cash wheat indexes were up about 20 cents for SRW and HRW, 8 cents for HRS. 

The strength in wheat left DTN Senior Analyst Darin Newsom in a quandary; as he said in his comments to subscribers in the Early Word Opening Grain Comments, "In reality, the fact that U.S. wheat ending stocks to use projecting out to near 50 percent should be enough to knock the legs out from under the market. The only thing is, it hasn't yet."

Overnight trade was firm to a couple cents higher for all three commodities at 6 a.m., so that's how the needle is pointing for opening calls for Friday's day session.