Market News

Trade focus back on harvest progress and exports

Traders have had more than a week to digest the October WASDE Report and an analyst says the focus is shifting back to exports and harvest progress.

Mark Schultz at North Star Commodities in Minneapolis summed up USDA’s latest round of production numbers as slightly friendly to soybeans and negative for corn and wheat.

He tells Brownfield there has been some encouraging export news for beans recently.

“With that said, harvest (in the U.S.) is mostly done (so) you don’t have the hedge pressure that we had at one time, or had the potential for.  So I think there, you’ve at least been able to get a little bit of movement to the upside.  But once you start getting over the $9.10 to $9.30 area, you’re going to start bumping into some pretty heavy resistance.”

Schultz says farmer selling is occurring with prices at those levels.

He describes the corn market as a continual struggle while it works its way lower.

“You’re probably going to get yourself somewhere between 55 and 65 percent harvested on corn in this country.  But you’ve got another five to eight more days of virtually no rain in the forecast (and) the crop is dried down.  I expect a heavy dose of hedge pressure coming on this market.”

Rapid harvest pace should diminish sale activity, resulting in corn going to storage. Schultz says basis may improve as a result, but the overall demand picture remains bleak at this point.