Evening markets: negative year for ags ends on weak note
A largely negative year for agricultural commodities headed for a largely negative finish, with profit-taking after what has been a better couple of months for grains seen playing a big role the retreat.While regulatory data overnight showed hedge funds taking a more bullish view on ags, in fact, the most upbeat positioning in six months, that was not as upbeat news as it seemed.Helen Plant, at the UK's HGCA bureau, highlighted that this in fact "poses a risk to the current price levels."As year-end results are an important measure for investment firms, speculative traders may sell-off some of these long positions in order to book profits or re-balance their positions for a new year's trading."'Powder is not so dry'While some have been hoping for a repeat in 2015 of the early 2014 rally, which was spurred by the likes of Ukraine's crisis and Brazilian drought, hedge fund positioning is not so conducive to gains as a year ago, when they were running with short positions in many contracts."This year their powder is not so dry," one US broker said."To see them add to a long position already [in corn] exceeding the equivalent of 1.2bn bushels will have to come with some serious fundamental reasons."...MUCH MORE
| Symbol | Last | Chg |
| Corn | 400-2 | -6-2 |
| Soybeans | 1025-0 | -19-0 |
| Wheat | 589-2 | -12-6 |
| Cocoa | 2910s | -62 |
| Coffee | 168.30 | +3.50 |
| Cotton #2 | 60.95 | -1.03 |
| Sugar #11 | 14.52s | -0.09 |
| Live Cattle | 163.625 | -1.075 |
| Lean Hogs | 81.700 | +0.525 |
And from FinViz:
